Trample
by Foy the Snooze Button
Summary: A clan once roamed the earth, rivaling the Otsutsuki and powerful enough to terrify the heavens. All were killed off in their sleep and history forgot them, as the heavens intended, but now this clan lives on in an emotionally confused child who holds the strongest beast on the planet his very existence is a challenge to the fates. Will he be ready to face them when the time comes?
1. Chapter 1

**Well this is strange, even for me; publishing a story a day before an update/publish day but hey…uhhh…**

**This story was thought up by my great friend Kilare T'Suna a while ago, possibly even months ago, and I back then I didn't feel up to writing it cuz it didn't **_**resonate**_** to me for some reason. He brought it up a few days ago and I guess I felt **_**something**_**. With that said, thank you for letting me write it, I appreciate the living blob out of you.**

**Now, a peak into the story; trying my best to stay within the requirements he set I made Naruto a holder of a unique bloodline and summoning contract, the name of the story should clue you in on what the bloodline and summons are. I took the usual route of the village council declaring that Naruto be killed but he isn't killed due to some special intervention from some people we least expect. I don't want to say anymore or it'll spoil the story so I'll just let you read and enjoy. Drop a review when you're done!**

**I DO NOT OWN NARUTO**

CHAPTER 1

"Class, I would like you to welcome a new student," Iruka said as he clapped for the children's attention. He turned to the door and a widely smiling child of eight years old marched into the class and stopped directly in front of the teacher's desk, standing at attention and puffing out his chest like a soldier. No part of his body was uncovered, besides his face; he was in a long sleeved dark shirt and trousers with black sneakers and a silver beanie, allowing only a few flecks of blonde hair to peak out from the sides and a fringe neatly falling down over his left eye till it stopped near his chin. He also had two four inch horns had sprouting out from the sides of his head and curving upwards into sharp points, passing through his silver beanie neatly. His hands, covered in black gloves with metal plates on the back, clenched nervously as he bowed deeply to his classmates and straightened up again, smiling. The boys horns drew their attention but a few that managed to wrench their eyes away noticed he was almost dangerously pale from the skin they did see (his face), but his pale face was smooth and without any horrific blemish, like delicate porcelain ceramics. His exposed right eye was bright blue with small traces of golden brown sparkling in his eyes, mesmerizing a few of them, a small nose and lips with three whisker marks on his cheeks that drove a few girls over the edge. Iruka chuckled to himself at the boys formality and said, "Please introduce yourself," for all his years as a teacher he only knew Hyuugas to be as polite as the boy in front of him.

The horned child cleared his through and spoke, "my name is Naruto," he received deafening silence as the other children leaned in to listen to more and Naruto perspired a little before he turned to Iruka, who motioned for him to go on, "I am eight years old…" he awkwardly trailed off and a female at the front with bright pink hair asked loudly.

"Don't you have a surname? Your name can't _just_ be Naruto,"

"Naruto is the name I've been using for as long as I could remember," Naruto replied.

"Why haven't I seen you before?" a civilian student questioned the mysterious boy.

"I've been living with my grandfather outside of Konoha," he replied formally.

"Grandfather? Don't you have parents to live with?" the same boy chortled.

Naruto's smile only twitched unperceptively but stayed on his face, "I don't have parents,"

Iruka interrupted before another question could be launched, "you can ask him more questions at your free time, for now I want you to make Naruto feel welcome," he looked around the class and pointed to a desk at the far back, the only free one, that didn't have any other person paired with it, "go and sit there. If you have any problems don't be afraid to come and meet me,"

"Thank you, Iruka-sensei," Naruto muttered as he bowed again to the man.

The boy in all black and silver marched towards his seat but stopped when a leg shot out to trip him, he looked down at the appendage with his head cocked in confusion, trying to figure out why a person would want to make him fall. He furrowed his eyebrows and looked at the black haired boy, who looked back at him defiantly, and blinked in silence. Naruto stayed there, rigid and bewildered, drawing the eyes of everyone in the class until a girl across the lane kicked the black haired boy's leg away and said, while blushing madly.

"Don't mind him Naruto-kun," Naruto allowed the smile to slip back onto his face before he nodded in appreciation and marched to his designated seat. The class proceeded after he did.

He was one of those children that seemingly dropped out of nowhere. No one knew who he was, no one knew where he came from; he just appeared in class one day and introduced himself as Naruto.

Nothing else.

At first glance, and even after hearing his mature-for-an-eight year old voice, more than a few girls instantly fell in love, enough for them to form a separate faction of fan girls than Uchiha Sasuke. More than a few girls kept sending him bashful looks and batting their eyelashes, while he looked back, still smiling but with his head cocked to the side in confusion. He didn't bring with him any books on the first day, so he didn't jot down anything, just perching his arms on his desk and sitting rigidly. After the first thirty minutes of girls randomly peering at him he chose to ignore them to focus on what the teacher was saying.

He was not a loner like the Uchiha or a hyperactive creature like Kiba but he had a sort of innocence reverberating around him that attracted people. During breaks most of the class had swarmed over to his desk and bombarded him with questions, and he answered them to the best of his knowledge, but what they noticed was that he did not have a good grasp on expressing himself, both physically and emotionally. His budding fan club found it more and more endearing when he answered any obvious verbal jab with a smile on his face and with honesty that _could_ one day kill him. He called a pig a pig and a pen a pen with the brutal honesty of an Aburame and with the swift brutality of a Hyuuga, and they suspected that he didn't know that his honesty could be insulting but it just added to his general adorableness. The boy was treated as a spectacle, with his sharp horns being the thing that drew their eyes, his cat-like whiskers coming after; his paleness following after and lastly was his smile, never once wavering under their scrutiny.

Naruto was an average student. He didn't resume school at the start of the session but in the middle, so when Iruka took a test to revise what he had taught that morning he scored a fair eight out of ten. The mystery about it was that he was obviously smart; with the way he eloquently spoke and the frequency he answered questions in the class when he was specifically called to. There was a spark of genius in his eye those in the Nara clan had but without the laziness. In the physical aspect of the class, Iruka noticed that Naruto deliberately allowed those he sparred against him to tag him and also deliberately drew out the fight before winning or drawing. The teacher chose to observe the child for the rest of his stay in school; the school headmaster had only informed him of Naruto that day and had classified the boy as too important for files on him to be stored with his class teacher, which was Iruka in Naruto's case, so the headmaster was the one that stored his record.

Iruka did not even get to see Naruto's general report; his doctors report, aptitude test, parent's/guardian's permission slip or his birth certificate. He was just told that Naruto was the relative of a very important person that had paid extra money to make sure Naruto's schooling isn't sabotaged.

It disturbed the academy teacher to no end.

As he graded the classes pop quiz he frowned when he saw that Naruto had rubbed out two correct answers and left them blank. He spied out of the window and spotted Naruto hanging upside down of a tree branch, with his hands dangling down and listening to Kiba talk about something. The circle of friends laughed boisterously and he noticed that Naruto looked at them for a few seconds before he too joined in, almost as if he didn't know when to laugh or not.

Strange…

At the end of the class, the students flooded out of the doors towards their homes and the black clad child walked in the middle of a sea of students, his long horns separating him from the rest. It went against his code as a teacher to stalk his students after class hours, it'll be scandalous to do that, but looking at the horned boy every passing second made warnings go through his head. The child was hiding something and he needed to find out what; first he would have to inquire the headmaster and coax a little information out of him. His thoughts were drawn away from the enigmatic child by Hinata, who stammered quietly a few questions she was too shy to ask during class.

Meanwhile, Naruto barely managed to slip away from a few students before they dragged him to their parents. His back hugged the wall of the back of the academy as he tried to steady his breathing; he grasped his chest, directly over his heart and frowned in confusion at the way his heart beat rapidly at the idea of meeting his classmates' parents. He didn't know why but he felt panicked at the thought of an older person he wasn't familiar with scrutinizing him. He breathed in raggedly and released it, perspiring not from heat but from a fear that gripped him that he did not understand. He peaked around the corner and ignored them when they called his name, until they gave up and started leaving the school grounds with their parents, who were just as curious, and afraid, to meet the 'cool horny kid'. The boy slipped out from his hiding spot and slinked out of the academy gates, he felt a few eyes on his back as he exited but shrugged them off nonchalantly.

Naruto lived in the residential district in a swanky apartment stocked with the latest gadgets and filled to the brim with more food he could know what to do with. His apartment building contained only five apartments but the rent to stay for a month could have bled any normal person dry, but Naruto's grandfather wasn't just any normal person; the man had singlehandedly paid for five years and six months, with proper maintenance from the buildings engineers and a window of opportunity for Naruto to have rights to lodge complaints if he ever found something out of place. The apartment building was highly secured, with only a key card allowing in the owners of the apartments and key cards letting them into their rooms; the key cards had been created by seal masters of the highest quality. The doors were made out of solid wood, nothing besides an elephant could smash through, and the walls were also thick enough to block out sounds from their neighbours but thin enough for the room not to be blistering hot, though at the same time there was an air conditioner in each apartment room in case it ever got that hot. Though the distance between his apartment building and the school was far, his grandfather had said that he wanted Naruto to associate with as many people before he returned, so he had to walk through the clan district, brush the side of the market district, trek through restaurant road, pass inside the 'snobby rich' street until he finally got to the residential district located far inside Konoha. He had the money to take a carriage to and from the academy but he had been given specific orders not to.

The boy kept his smile in place, unwavering under the gawking looks he got from the people he passed. Some lingered and sent him looks of disgust at the simple fact that he was different, while others looked on briefly before going about their business. The boy didn't see any of them as a threat, even the squads of ANBU tailing him, so he didn't bother trying to act tough, he didn't even care when three pairs of hands grabbed him and pulled him into an alleyway, slamming him against a wall. Naruto huffed but still smiled at his aggressors as they circled him with hostile intentions in their eyes and posture. He remembered one to be the boy that had tried to trip him on his way to his desk, he still didn't know why but he had filed it away as a question he would ask his grandfather.

The black haired boy was flanked by four other boys and one girl with light brown hair. Two blocked the alley with their bodies and the boy, who was the apparent leader of the gang, stomped to Naruto and poked the boy's chest, unnerved by Naruto's fixed smile but puffing his chest to seem bigger than the boy.

"You think you're so cool, with your horns and clothes but you're just a freak!" he cracked up and his friends joined in, laughing childishly. Naruto creased his smooth forehead in thought before he said.

"I don't remember trying to act 'cool'" this cut their laughs off short.

"When I'm done with you, you'll remember your place," he punched to Naruto's face but the horned child tilted his head to the side slightly so the boy's fist slammed into the wall with a resounding crack, signifying that he broken his fingers. The boy lurched away and grasped his hands, screaming in pain and frantically yelling at his friends, "What are you waiting for? Beat him up!"

They charged at Naruto, yelling war cries, while the boy stood in place, trying to understand the situation, "you are attacking me, are we not allies?" his hands remained by his side and his smile remained as he smoothly stepped aside for the girl to collide with the wall and fall back into a dead faint after painfully smacking against the solid brick wall.

"We're not your allies, ugly," a boy said as he threw a crude kick at Naruto, the horned boy slide and at the same time tripped another boy, bringing both together in a horrific clash of limbs.

"If we are not allies then I have to dispatch you before you become a threat to Konoha," Naruto's smile cleared from his face and he grabbed the last boy by his shoulder, driving his right knee into his abdomen and throwing him into a wall. His head smacked against the brick wall and he slowly slumped down, blood painted the wall as he fell down. Naruto flicked his hands to the side and a pair of kunai spiralled into his hands from his sleeve, he blurred towards the leader of the gang, his face stoic and emotionless, and was about to stab his blades into the other child's eyes before his weapons clashed against a katana, wielded by a purple haired woman in a cat ANBU mask.

"That's enough, Naruto,"

The boy regarded her with a quick flick of his eye until he remembered who she was. He smiled his usual fake smile and twirled the knives in his hands, allowing them to disappear in his sleeves. The woman hesitantly dropped her weapon but didn't sheathe it. She stepped back cautiously and used her fingers to feel for a pulse on the bleeding boy, sighing when she found one. She signalled for a few ninjas to take the child to the hospital and Naruto watched on in silence. Two more ANBU led the other injured children away while one landed from the ledge in a crouch, before standing.

"Wasn't that a little too much?" Dog asked and Naruto wrinkled his eyebrows.

"I don't understand, they were not allies and so they should not be given mercy,"

Cat looked at her captain, then back to Naruto, "they are our allies,"

"Then why did they say they were not my allies," he tilted his head to the side cutely and the purple haired woman forced down the urge to pinch his cheeks.

"They were trying to intimidate you," she supplied as she sheathed her weapon after her captain commanded her to by sign.

"I still don't understand…" why did he have this burning sensation in his chest? Why did he feel sad that he had almost killed a comrade? His training never even hinted towards understanding emotions; he was just taught to be the best fighter.

"How about going back home to think about it?" Dog proposed as he eyed the child suspiciously, his posture rigid and ready if Naruto pointed at him with his horns. Naruto bowed politely and marched away from them, "does Hokage-sama really trust that kid?" Cat shrugged and began scrubbing the wall of the blood with a dirty rag while her superior watched, "he seriously wanted to kill that kid because he said he wasn't an ally,"

"He was strong too," Cat added lowly as she poured water from her bottle onto the wall and continued scrubbing, "I could feel it when our weapons met. He could have broken my katana if he pushed for longer but he stopped when I got to him in time," he used one hand to unsheathe her trusty blade to show two small chips in the blade where the two kunai sliced in. Dog took the weapon and examined it carefully.

"Didn't you just get this back from Higuarashi for maintenance?" she nodded and used a minor earth jutsu to shift the ground over the watered down blood on the ground. It was best that no one found out that someone had almost been killed there, especially because it was the Kyuubi jinchuriki who had just been seen after eight years of absence, "I'll report this to Hokage-sama, maybe he can rethink his decision,"

Cat suddenly rounded on him, "so that what? We kill him? Don't you think that'll be a waste of potential? You just saw what he could do, academy students or not that is not something you should just extinguish," after her little rant she ducked her head and added, "sir,"

Kakashi stared at her in silence for a few seconds before he chuckled and patted her shoulder, "relax, relax~. I'll report this to Hokage-sama but not because I want him out of the village, but because its protocol,"

The woman's lips twitched upwards into a small smile under her mask and she snapped into a salute, "understood, Dog-senpai,"

The reason Naruto had been able to drive most of the ninja populace to suspect him was not only because of his status as jinchuriki.

On the day he had been born the council had called for his execution, the Sandaime was driven into a corner by their demands and when information leaked to the populace of Konoha that same night by and unknown civilian. Age had weakened the old man's resolve and he fell under the villages call for the infants head, the Sarutobi had scheduled for Naruto's execution for midnight but in a dramatic turn of events Naruto disappeared that night before harm could get to him. The Sandaime had listened to ways for Naruto's safety to be safeguarded and the legacy he represented to be nurtured but he still fell under the bloodthirsty calls of the citizens of the village. The Uchiha clan head had said that he and his clan would resign and leave Konoha forever if Naruto's blood ever stopped pumping through his body, the Kurama clan had joined in and pledged this as well and the Aburame clan joined in and vowed that if the infant Namikaze was harmed in any way they would leave the village and never return. Suspiciously enough, it was member of these clans that watched over Naruto, with a few other ninjas, before his scheduled execution. The Sandaime didn't look too much into it and announced to the village that the Kyuubi holder had vanished without a trace. Life moved on, nearly everyone forgot about the Kyuubi jinchuriki.

Only the ninjas tied his hair and his whiskers together with the child they wanted to kill years ago and suspicion returned. The only thing keeping them from ambushing the boy and delivering jungle justice was the Hokage's word. Though, with just as many people seeing him as a threat, a few people saw Naruto as an ally, like the Uchiha, Aburame and Kurama clans, as well as the ninjas that were close to Naruto's parents, besides Kakashi. They assumed that the boy knew of their plan all those years ago when he was a baby, this was where their fear for his treachery stemmed from.

Naruto wasn't oblivious to their looks, but he didn't care; he was technically overqualified to be an academy student. The whiskered child stalked up the stairs mechanically, his face still plastered with his fake smile, he stopped on the third of four floors in the building and he swiped his key card over the only door the staircase led to. The key hole glowed light green and he pushed forward, he was immediately met with the soothing scent of the air freshener he preferred using. It was jade with a hint of rose, wafting in the air not as seductive as it normally should but with a calming aroma that could tame even the wildest of beasts, in theory. He inhaled deeply and allowed his smile to fade off his face, he grumbled and rubbed his sore cheeks as he walked towards the island kitchen; he had smiled more and longer than he had ever done in his eight years of living in just one day. The boy silently went through the action of preparing tea; he opened the cabinet above the sink and removed two tea bags from a tin, placed them into two mugs he had mechanically used his other hand to rinse out and placed the cups beside the stove as he lightly kicked open the cabinet under the stove, revealing gleaming pots and pans, he pursed his lips as he searched through it, gently shifting pots aside and sighing when he found what he was looking for.

A stainless steel kettle.

He pulled it out and filled it with water, bringing it to the stove and snapping the knob to far right once, a bright blue flame burst into life and Naruto placed the kettle onto it. He looked at his left wrist and lifted it up to look at his wrist watch, an ANBU grade clock that was a mandatory accessory black ops, whether ANBU or ROOT, had to wear at all times.

_Three_

_Two_

_O-_

_Knock, knock, knock._

The blank faced boy marched to his front door and opened it. On the other side stood his grandfather, Shimura Danzo.

Danzo stoically looked down at Naruto with his lone eye and his face engraved frown. The boy bowed slightly to the older man and muttered, "Welcome, grandfather," he opened the door wider and Danzo nodded in acknowledgement as he steadily walked into the apartment and scrutinised it silently. The child closed the door and motioned his relative towards a chair near the living room table close to the island kitchen. The scarred man slowly trudged to the chair and took a seat, a whistle from the kitchen signified that the water in the kettle was hot so Naruto hurried to take it off the fire and pour the tea into the mugs he set aside.

Naruto placed a mug close to his grandfather and sat down with his own mug across from the silent man. The two stoic males silently cupped their mugs of tea and inhaled deeply at the same time, this brought a small twitch on Danzo's lips. The eight year old peaked over his mug with large eyes, even the one hidden under the blonde fringe covering almost half of his face and silently sipped the green tea in his cup; silence reigned until the council member cleared his throat and gently placed his cup onto the table.

"How was school, child?"

The boys lips screwed in uncertainty, "It was…eventful,"

"How so?" the man inquired from his charge and took a small sip from the cup, savouring the taste before swallowing it with a quiet satisfied sigh; Naruto always knew how he wanted his tea.

"My classmates are a lot weaker than I anticipated, I fear that if I looked at them the wrong way they would crumble," the grandchild mumbled, "they talk too much and too fast, I felt…something strange growing in me when they invited me to play with them,"

"Was this feeling pleasant?"

Naruto nodded once, "I felt…lighter that they wanted me around. Is that good?"

Danzo was not a man of facial expressions so he deemed Naruto with a solid nod, "it was good," Naruto ducked his head slightly as he nodded back and looked into his mug of tea, "I was informed of your altercation with those children today,"

The boy immediately went on the defensive, "they declared that they were not my allies. I had to take care of them before they did something to harm Konoha,"

Danzo shook his head slowly, "Naruto…that is what _I_ would have done,"

"Was I wrong?" Naruto mumbled and furrowed his eyebrows, questioning a few things he had been raised to believe in. The bang hanging over his left eye brushed the rim of his mug but he didn't mind, he liked his hair like that.

The one eyed war veteran straightened up in his chair and said, "child, I don't want you to live your life on my will, I want you to live your life the way you want to. I want you develop your own opinion and use your own discretion. That is why I want you to be around those of your age; to learn things that I cannot teach," he paused in his fairly long monologue, "like emotions. Do you remember what I told you before we left the base?"

Naruto nodded curtly, "that my physical training was complete; it was time for my psychological training. But grandfather, why am I different from Torune and Fu and all my other comrades underground?"

The man remained silent for a few minutes and Naruto patiently waited for him to speak, "because…despite not showing it…I _care_…for you, child," just saying the word gave him have a _terrible_ burning sensation in his chest, not because he didn't mean it but because he was not used to voicing out the stray emotions that failed to leave him, "I owe your parents _my life_, I have told you this numerous times but this cannot be expressed enough. You hold the most destructive force in the world in that seal and if not for your Varl bull DNA it would be free since you do not have a proper grasp on your emotions. But…I do not just want you to be an empty shell I can throw away; you are special to me in ways I cannot fully express. I gave you all the tools you need and I did this because I trust your judgment, now I want you to learn to have a firm grasp on your emotions," both in understanding and expression.

Naruto remained stoic throughout the man's speech, though a slow tear unconsciously tracked down his right eye, "thank you, grandfather. I will not fail you,"

"I trust you won't, you are my grandson," Danzo said with a tiny hint of pride as he stood up, bones creaking with effort but he powered through. Naruto hastily stood up as well and bowed to the man; uncertainty swam through Danzo's eye before he slowly reached forward and patted Naruto's head twice, "if you need me you know where to find me, child,"

Naruto shook under his mentors hand and closed his eyes tightly, trying to contain the rebel tears that wanted to pour out of his eyes, "I will visit when I can, grandfather,"

The bandage swaddled man nodded once and swished mechanically to the door. Naruto looked at his hand and wiggled them before he raised them slightly and waved goodbye to his grandfather. He had no idea how the old and weathered war veteran walked up two flights of stairs, but he allowed the man his secret and closed the door. He shakily breathed in and out and stalked to the kitchen to wash the two mugs before he started preparing dinner for himself. He screeched to a stop when he saw a large scroll on the dining table, he vaguely suspected that it was a list of 'projects' his grandfather wanted him to complete while he studied. These 'projects' was just a fancy way of saying 'low ranked missions' in underground, it was the closest to a joke within their ranks. He sealed it into the table to look into later as he slipped into the kitchen with the empty mugs.

The Varl bull DNA Danzo mentioned was a last second decision the old man had made to ensure that Naruto's ROOT training went as smoothly as possible, seeing as a major part of the training was for the trainee to lose all his emotions and his touch with sanity. It was a delicate procedure Danzo entrusted Orochimaru to perform in secret just as the child was brought to his hideout by Fugaku, who was none the wiser. The rogue Sannin took DNA from an ancient, broken horn from an extinct race called Varl, who were later survived by the descendants of the bull she herded. These Varl were said to have walked the earth long before the gods noticed their existence and wiped them out for fear that these all-powerful men would one day rise up against the heavens, and would very much succeed with the kind of bullish strength and brutality they had; before they were unconsciously fed sleeping potions in their vats of beer and killed off in their sleep by the joint effort of Kami and Yami, a single horn didn't burn into ash while the two gods slashed and scorched the earth after the weakened men. This horn dug into the ground and was unearthed by Madara and Hashirama during the fight that formed the valley of end, at the very bottom of the lake between both of the stone carvings of the legendary figures. It was Danzo that first took the horn and had been studying it for years before he lent it to Orochimaru, a close associate of his, to look at for himself. This was where he found out about the extinct clan of Varl, the oldest clan on the planet, not only living through the descendants of the bulls they herded but also directly passed on their DNA through the horn. If not for Orochimaru's insatiable thirst for knowledge he would never had found out about the Varl from the libraries of the Uzumaki clan before that clan was also destroyed.

The Sannin owed Danzo more than a few favours so he begrudgingly performed surgery on Naruto to carefully place the old DNA into Naruto's DNA to give it the level of stability the clan was written to have. Solid on the ground as a bull that couldn't be moved, all because of their saturated and potent earth chakra, capable of holding down any person they fought. The DNA was accepted easily because his Uzumaki heritage made it easy to assimilate DNA as long as it was introduced steadily. After the operation a Yamanaka had mind walked in Naruto's infant mind and witnessed the great tailed beast sunken into the ground by his arms, feet and tails.

Sleeping.

They took it as a success that the earth chakra was able to put the strongest tailed beasts to sleep after only a week of applying it to Naruto. So from that day on Naruto had been forced to bear the weight of expectation of the whole ROOT organisation and his grandfather, learning advanced subjects when he could talk and training like a wild animal when he could walk. Naruto still had to go for regular check-ups with Orochimaru every three months in a ROOT base in Grass country, though it didn't stop him from shooting up the ranks at an aggressive and terrifying speed. It reached a point that during the soul exerting exercises he just…stopped _feeling_.

He had the emotions locked somewhere in his psyche but he had disregarded them for so long that they had shrivelled up, stomped under his ROOT mindedness. Now his grandfather wanted him to revive those dying emotions. How, he didn't know.

Despite all of the expectations piled on him he still wondered what his parents had done to make Danzo so indebted to them.

Naruto puffed out a breathe; shifting the long bang over his left eye away from his lips, and then he decided to eat out. He didn't feel like cooking and he had enough money to last him a month, if he used it well, until a ROOT operative was sent to him with his monthly allowance. Sure one of the many things he was taught was accounting and proper finance, and yes he was blessed enough to have a grandfather that didn't care much for money enough to shower it on him while he was living outside of the ROOT base, but that didn't mean he would just blow it all away. He at least wanted to save some money from his monthly allowance, just in case.

The deceptively mature eight year old ROOT ninja entered his bedroom and examined himself in the mirror, adjusting his silver beanie and straightening his black shirt before he smiled a little and puffed out his chest. He checked his wrist for the time and his eyes fractionally widened when he saw the green light blink **08:50PM**. He exited his apartment, being extra careful to lock the door behind him, the high level seals inspected by his comrades in ROOT clicked in place, and he marched down the stairs into town, taking his time to look for a good place to eat. He was grateful that he didn't have ROOT ninjas following after him, like when he was five and was still getting the hang of going on missions, but it did mildly get him annoyed when he saw a woman donning a Cat mask leap from building to building above him. He pulled up his gloves and stuffed his hands into his pockets, slouching his shoulder as the cold chill licked his cheek, turning the pale skin red. He idly blew at his overhanging bang as it tickled his nose and peered through the windows of a brightly lit restaurant, he pushed away when he saw that it was candlelit and snobby, two combinations that gave him indigestion.

It was the middle of the year and the streets were fairly populated, he looked at them in wonder as most of them walked in pairs, a few even in groups of ten, bellowing boisterously as they stumbled past him. Naruto wasn't aware that he had been walking for more than a few minutes, deeper down restaurant road into the darker corners as he observed people trooping down the streets in numbers. His eyebrows furrowed in confusion, and not for the first time that day, and he stared impolitely at two people, a male and female, kissing vigorously and hiding in the shadows of a small restaurant. He studied them for a few more seconds until the man pushed his face away and flipped over, hiding the woman and continuing their make-out session. The boy grunted sourly with a small frown before he shrugged and turned to keep walking but stopped just before he could start when he found a girl with deep brown eyes and brown hair staring at him with a knowing grin on her face.

"People like to have privacy when they're doing that," she crossed her arms, "what's a kid like you doing out this late?"

"If they intended to have privacy then I'm sure there are enough places to find it," Naruto replied almost immediately, "and I'm looking for where I can eat dinner,"

The girl jumped over the obvious question of why he couldn't just eat with his family and dramatically motioned to the restaurant to her side, clearly named 'Ichiraku Ramen' and said, "Then you've come to the right place; we serve the best ramen in all of Konoha!"

He observed her and deduced that she was in her mid-teens, and then promptly saying, "How are you so sure this is the best ramen in all of Konoha?"

He asked this so mechanically, for once forgetting to smile, that all childhood wonder after her declaration left her body in a glorious display of disappointment. She blubbered as she tried to come up with a quick answer, "well…Uhm… we only use the best ingredients on all the land,"

He perched his chin between his index and middle finger in a thinking pose, eying the ramen stand critically, "if you can afford to do that then why does this place look like…_this_?"

Her cheeks reddened in embarrassment, "look like what?!"

He blinked at her outraged yell, "like a tavern,"

The brown haired girl stormed to Naruto and grabbed him by bunching up the front of his shirt and setting her other hand to punch him, while the boy cocked his head to the side at the fact she had taken offense at his honesty, "say that again, brat," maybe it was the low lighting but she didn't seem to see his sharp horns, "I dare you,"

Naruto blinked again and said, "Ok. Your restaurant looks like a tavern," he wanted to see how she would react to his honesty after her dare. Her face took on a whole new hue of red and her fist surged forward to his face, expecting him to at least flinch away in fear but only getting a mildly interested eye looking up at her and an idle breathe pushing away his bang. She stopped her fist before it could hit him and dragged him into the restaurant, "as I thought, with your arm strength and the lack of bruises on your fists you have never assaulted anyone, hence your threat was just a show of force," he said and a light went off over his head. He allowed her to drag him into Ichikraku by the front of his now scrunched black shirt as he removed a small notepad from his sleeves and a pencil, jotting down his observations and proudly slipping them back up his sleeves, satisfied that he now understood what he referred to as 'a show of force'. He grunted when he was rudely shoved onto a bar stool, "you people are truly fascinating,"

"Shut up," the girl barked with her teeth bared. She furiously tied on her apron muttering childish curse words her father wouldn't have been proud of. Then she loudly cracked her neck and her fingers before commanding, "Order something,"

"I thought you said I should shut up," Naruto fired back.

"Shut up!" she squealed in a high pitch voice and rubbed her forehead, soothing the creases there that this infuriatingly adorable boy was causing. She took in a few deep breathes before relaxing her small rigid shoulders and saying with a gentle smile, "we started off on the wrong foot, I'm sorry…" Naruto hummed with his lips pursed, then nodding. She grit her teeth to contain her rage, "you're supposed to apologise back,"

The horned boy 'oh'd' in realization and jotted down the small tid bit of info into his small jotter, "noted," he coughed and slipped them back into his sleeves, "I apologise,"

She glared at him for a few seconds before smiling happily, "apology accepted. Now, what do you want to eat?"

In a rare show of intuition that he wasn't taught in ROOT the horned boy blankly replied, "You mean besides ramen?"

She gave him the stink eye, the worst one she had ever given a living creature, "don't test me brat,"

"And aren't you too young to be calling me brat?" he asked and waited for her response so as to write it down. She silently fumed until it all miraculously went away.

She motioned above her at the assorted list of ramen they served at the ramen stand, "pick one and I'll show you that it's the best in the country,"

"I thought you said it was 'the best in Konoha'" she glared at him, enough for him to shift a little in his seat, a tiny bit uncomfortable at the way her hands slowly slinked to a knife; if she attacked then he would be forced to attack back and he didn't want to hear the inevitable talking to from his grandfather when they found her dead body, "I'll have the…chicken ramen with scrambled eggs and…water, please,"

"Is that all?" she asked with a raised eyebrow as she began preparing his order, dramatically flipping the eggs in an attempt to mystify him but sweat dropped when she found him animatedly observing another couple snogging outside the stand, "you really like peaking huh,"

"It isn't peaking if they are making no attempt to hide," he shot back quickly without looking away, "I'm confused though…what are they doing and why are they doing it?"

Her cheeks flushed, "it's called kissing and it's a way of expressing your attraction to someone,"

"Attraction? Like with magnets?"

"Something like that, yeah," she neatly poured the ramen into a bowl and set the scrambled eggs onto it to the side. She pushed it to him and slide new chopsticks across the table into his awaiting hands.

"But how can living organisms like us human beings behave like magnets?"

She rubbed the sides of her head at the large words he was using, "they just…like each other really, really much and they're…expressing it the best way they can at the moment," she hurriedly closed the curtain flap and snapped, "enough dirty adult talk. Eat your food,"

He pouted at her but she stubbornly crossed her arms and strutted back around the counter, watching him with bright, sparkling eyes as he broke his chopsticks, gently blew on the noodle, pushed his bang aside a little, not enough to expose his left eye, and sucked the noodles into his mouth till his cheeks bulged, cutting it not too long after. He savoured the taste and swallowed, then smacking his lips and sipping the cup of water she presented to him.

She bit her bottom lip and hopped excitedly on her feet, "so? How was it?"

Naruto looked up at her with his lone exposed eye and opened his mouth to tell her that it didn't taste as impressive as she had been hyping it, but held his tongue when he saw a flurry of emotions and feelings through her eyes and posture, and caught one that he knew all too well: fear of disappointment. It was probably her first time making ramen without assistance; his words could either make or break her self-confidence as a chef. His eyes briefly lowered at the various memories associated with the feeling, then replaced the sombre frown with smile so wide and bright that he closed his eyes and sent her a thumbs up.

"It's the best I've ever tasted," he could hear her sigh in relief and when he opened his eyes he noticed her abruptly stop her celebratory dance, "can you please prepare more?"

"How much more?"

His face turned comically grim as he replied, "I'll tell you when to stop," and he poured the whole bowl of steaming hot ramen into his mouth, while she rushed around the kitchen and cooked as fast as possible to try and keep up with the eight year old child's monster appetite.

The question of who he was and who she was forgotten that night as the horned child devoured eat bowl of delectable ramen without mercy.

The next day, Naruto groaned awake, wondering where he was and after a few slow minutes of wondering he recognized the picture of Danzo and him, leading him to deduce that he had blacked out from eating ramen and his drunken body was lugged back to his apartment. He moaned tiredly and sat up, "no more binge eating ramen," he huffed and swung his feet off the bed, planted them firmly into the ground. He licked his dry lips and idly regarded the bedside clock blinking **06:20AM**, funny how he still woke up early after his ramen induced coma. Naruto scratched his cheek and rubbed his tired eyes, though before he got to his feet he noticed a note on his forehead. He swiftly swiped off the note and read it:

_I took you back to your place after you passed out; don't worry, you kept mumbling for me to bring you to this apartment. Anyway, I didn't know any normal human being can eat thirty eight bowls of ramen BACK TO BACK. Come back whenever you can, Naruto-kun! And hey, don't worry about the bill, I took it from your wallet._

_Ayame._

Naruto's eyes widened in horror and he frantically patted his pockets down until he found his wallet, his heart dropped when he found no money inside.

**Authors note**

**Let it be said that Naruto HAS emotions but he doesn't know how to differentiate them or express them. He was trained much more vigorously than other ROOT, that's why he was even allowed out of Danzo's close watch (he passed every test he put Naruto to), but he still has emotions for reasons best explained in the next chapter.**

**Notice how the Varl were taken out by beer and Naruto blacked out from eating ramen? Well…yes, there's an obvious connection there.**

**Ok, so first chapter done and I'm kinda proud of it. Just a little warning before I publish the next chapter when I finish it, if your against ROOT or even the remote thought of Danzo being even the slightest bit kind, even though there will be no heart filled hugs or running in the parks (just thinking of Danzo doing that is giving me an…unpleasant burning sensation in my chest), then it's best if you skip this story and go for something else I've done. I'm not averse to writing dark things and let's face it, no matter the angle you look at it; ROOT isn't a legal or kind organisation. How they do things won't appeal to people.**

**It's just a warning.**

**I assure you that a few things will make sense in the next few chapters like whether or not it was really a deity that had killed the Varl, whether or not Naruto would be paired with anyone, etc. Stuff like that.**

**Any who, what did you think of this chapter?**

**Leave a review on your thoughts, would you so kindly, stay safe wherever you are in the world and I will see you in the next chapter.**

**Foy.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Guess who's changing history again?**

**A warning before you guys go into this chapter; I changed a few things in 'Naruto's' history. Don't come at me with fire and pitch forks because you don't like it, if you don't like the thought of canon Naruto history being changed then I advise you to give this story a pass because there will be changes, nothing that'll destabilize the universe, just interesting things. Trust me.**

**And, before I forget, this story will not have a harem pairing, no matter how you look at it. Also, remember the warning I gave at the bottom of the first chapter.**

**Oh and I'm also altering a few characters behaviour.**

**Note: any jutsu or ability that I don't explain in the story will be explained in the authors note at the bottom.**

**Enjoy…**

CHAPTER 2

_One week later_

Low grunts of effort resonated through the underground ROOT base as a sea of blank faced men and women, boys and girls, garbed in short sleeved black shirts and military grade pants forcefully went through the motions of their fighting style. Each one as rigid as the last and all were pushing through exhaustion to make themselves stronger. A stone faced woman with white hair stood at the top of a balcony looking over the training ROOT operatives, her facial expression empty of any sort of human feeling, or humanity in general, and she nodded towards a pale man as he slowed down for a fraction of a second; a moment later two masked operatives descended on him and disappeared in a flurry of shadows. Her pale byakugan eyes looked to her side sharply when she sensed movement and she yelled.

"Commanding officer present! All salute!"

She spun to a trench coat wearing Aburame with a full head protector, fell onto one knee and held her right fist to her left breast in a (unique) salute with her head bowed slightly. Everyone sharply snapped to attention and followed her example without hesitation, the collective shuffling they made ended as they held their position. Torune looked down at the Hyuuga stoically.

"Danzo-sama summons No 2575, codename: Sai,"

"Understood, Torune-sama," the white haired Hyuuga muttered and rose onto her feet in one fluid motion, testament to her years of training, "No2575, codename: Sai! Report to Danzo-sama immediately,"

A black haired boy kneeling in the fourth row got to his feet quickly, bowed to his commanding officers and marched out of the training ground into a long tunnel. The tunnel lead into an open space shaped like a cylinder with hundreds of rooms spiralling high upwards into inky darkness, just showing how deep the underground base. Without pausing, Sai marched towards the room directly facing the entrance tunnel and politely knocked on the door, he pushed into the office when he heard an affirmative grunt. Inside was a very spacious office with a solid mahogany desk and chair situated at the far end, with two pictures on it; one of Danzo with Naruto, taken after his very first mission, and the other was of when Danzo was younger with three genin posing in front of him, they were noticeably younger versions of the current Aburame and Kurama clan heirs, and the between them grinning from ear to ear was a red head with excited purple eyes. The room was painted a dull grey and there was a large map of the elemental nations nailed to the wall left of the desk. Behind the desk was the rigidly sitting form of the supreme commander of ROOT, Shimura Danzo.

The man looked over the eight year old operative with a dull eye and slightly nodded for him to close the door; Sai did so mechanically and bowed fully.

"You sent for me sir,"

The man silently regarded him again and droned, "Take a seat," he nodded to the seat and Sai promptly sat in it, his face as dull as his commanding officer's. Danzo got right into the main reason he called the boy, "my commanders say that they caught you on multiple occasions sneaking out of the base without permission," he didn't get any physical reaction but the boys forehead perspired a little, "I will ask you this once and I want the absolute truth, child; where have you been sneaking to?"

Sai looked down with fractionally wide eyes and gulped; after being caught in Konoha market for the first time a week before he thought they would report him but as they didn't he got comfortable with the cycle of running out of the base, assuming that his superiors wouldn't waste Danzo's time by telling him. He had been conditioned for hours after each breakout but he still kept at it, "sir, I went to see how Naruto-sama is doing?"

The tense atmosphere let up only a little as Danzo's visible left eye blinked once, "my grandson is one of the best ninjas I have ever trained, if not _the_ best. He does not need protection," if Danzo was anything, he was honest; even he had forgotten the last time he had lied.

The young boys lips twitched downwards a little, "I…I know, Danzo-sama," he looked down at his knees and clenched and unclenched his hands, "I just wanted to…make…sure," with each word his voice got quieter and quieter with resignation.

The councilman hummed to himself, "tell me young one, how many missions have you gone on with my grandson?"

Sai kept his eyes down as he replied, "none, Danzo-sama,"

"Do you know why?"

"Because Naruto-sama is too overqualified to go on the missions I go on, sir,"

"And since when has he been overqualified?"

Sai sighed in disappointment, "Since he was five years old, sir,"

Danzo slowly tapped the arm of his chair with his left pointer finger, the sound passing through the room like a death bell for the nervous child, until Danzo stopped and spoke again, "you are clearly one of the best ninjas I have and I do not want to have you killed; that would be a waste of proper tool. So I will go against my better judgement and make you my official messenger to my grandson,"

Sai's head snapped up to look at his commander, he gasped, "sir?"

"You will be allowed out of the base whenever you want but the condition is that you take permission before you leave and it is on an important assignment,"

Sai swallowed deeply and bowed his head, "thank you, Danzo-sama,"

The man remained neutral before he nodded for the boy to leave.

**OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO**

Sasuke Uchiha hopped on his feet and surged towards his target, another eight year old child with his back turned and nodding to what a few other children were talking about, silently listening to what they were saying, seemingly oblivious to the Uchiha that ran at him with murder in his eyes.

"So we climbed the Hokage monument," the students were walking through the busy hallway, murmuring loudly and allowing the irate Uchiha passage as he surged past them.

"But what is the benefit of climbing it if you could just use binoculars," Naruto questioned to civilian child and the other civilian children groaned in unison.

"Just because," the speakers twin sister said as she threw her hands into the air in frustration.

Naruto was still bewildered, "because what?"

The group groaned again and began questioning why they were even hanging out with the horned boy in the first place, "it's fun! Because it's fun!" Sasuke was getting closer and closer, running faster with each breathe, those he passed turned in the direction he was pelting towards and began murmuring loudly. Sasuke raised his right fist and thrust it to the back of Naruto's head.

The secret ROOT ninja nodded slowly just to get their attention off him before he said, "excuse me," he turned around, just as the attacking Uchiha could tag him with his fist the silver capped child bypassed the fist, pursing his smiling lips as it whistled past his face and jutted his right pointer and middle fingers forward over his head and towards Sasuke's surprised face, gently tapping him between his eyes and halting all of his movements with his overhead upside down finger gun. All the while keeping the genial smile on his face, "how can I help you, Uchiha-san?"

Sasuke's mouth dropped open and he shook slightly, the other boys counter attack was nothing but a tap between his eyes but that alone was illogical; he had run not less than fifteen yards from the door to Naruto at a speed he deduced was at most high genin, and all Naruto did to stop him was two fingers to the face. At least he should have broken his head from the contact, or even a mild concussion, but there wasn't even a mild discomfort. Not even a backlash. They held that position, the hallway filled with students of different classes watched with gaping mouths and sagging shoulders, their eyes not believing what had just happened but _clearly_ it had happened.

The new kid had just stopped a full on charge from an Uchiha with nothing but his right index and middle fingers.

Naruto's smile began to waver when he realized what he had done, _'Oh,'_ his mind frantically ran through what he could do to salvage the situation, then a light bulb went off in his head; he hastily dragged his hand back and frantically shook it, tears pouring from his eyes as he cried loudly, "gosh darn it! My fingers!"

This seemed to kick the students out of their delirium; the gang of friends he was walking with, all civilian children, gathered around him and began fretting over him. Naruto tenderly held his fingers to himself, hiding them away from their concerned eyes. This was when girls from his budding fan club began crawling out of the wood works and pushed their former crush away, more people pushed back against the dozens of people in support of Sasuke (his fan club) and the formerly lukewarm atmosphere in the hallway turned toxic as a riot broke out between members of Naruto's fan club and Sasuke's.

The horned boy ducked his head as a girl flew over him at another girl, while his friends hurried him away from the childish violence towards the academy infirmary to tend to his 'broken' fingers.

Needless to say that despite it being early in the morning classes didn't take place; students from differently lettered classes, from first year to fourth, ganged up against those who weren't in the same faction. It was team Sasuke or team Naruto, unless you were lucky (and smart) enough to run out just as Naruto yelled in pain. Luckily for Sasuke he had been dragged to safety by a few members of his club before being subsequently escaping before the fevered girls could tie him to a chair. It took the teachers collective efforts to pry the young ones apart and try to decipher what had happened, a hard feet to do seeing as children tend to over exaggerate stories, especially in favour of their idols.

Team Naruto said that Sasuke had been beating up random people, closely friends with Naruto, before the object of their affections leaped in to fight him. The fight pushed on until Sasuke 'evilly' smashed Naruto's fingers with his forehead. While team Sasuke told a similar story but with the twist that it was Naruto that was bullying and that Sasuke had vanquished the horned child by smashing his fingers.

The truth finally came from the two culprits.

**OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO**

Hiruzen Sarutobi looked at the written report about the inappropriately nicknamed 'Academy apocalypse' where numerous students had to be sent to the hospital for various unexplainable wounds. _Thankfully_ no one had died.

Though if the war had dragged on for even a minute longer sharp weapons' would have been introduced besides their claws and teeth, that is.

The Hokage, usually weathered with age and responsibility, glared at the two academy students with anger, specifically the serenely smiling Naruto, who had his right hand wrapped in bandages; the report just said he sprained them. The horned had just been in the public eye for a week and he had already caused multiple children to go to the hospital, albeit it wasn't his fault that there were overzealous people that were willing to leap into fire to defend him. The man's hands tightened around the report at the thought of Naruto using persuasion tactics taught to him in ROOT by Danzo to create his own faction of ninjas. The Hokage wasn't given the _full_ report on what Naruto had been trained in and what he could do with or without effort but what was included was that one of his specialties was acting; his war hawk associate once told him of one of Naruto's missions where he slyly infiltrated a kidnapping ring and was given passage to see the head honcho with only his charms and acting skills to back him up. To this day people associated the capture of one of Konoha's top five wanted criminals to Yamato Tenzo, even though the man had spent that same day relaxing in his home.

His eyes swivelled to Sasuke and the boy at least looked penitent, although it was buried under layers of stubborn pride and arrogance, the boy even tilted his chin up as their eyes clashed before ducking his head in submission.

The Sarutobi cleared his throat and closed the file before him, "what made you want to hit Naruto, Sasuke?" the man directed the question to the boy to his left and the Uchiha had to apply all the things he had observed from his father not to begin sweating at the tone of his voice, his eyes briefly flicked to Naruto and he regained composure when he saw that the other boy didn't even flinch.

"He said my hairstyle looked like a ducks butt," he said and rudely pointed at Naruto, who shrugged and smiled a little tighter.

Hiruzen sighed and palmed his face, "is that why you ran full speed to throttle him on the back of his head? He made fun of your hair?" why do children have to be so petty?

Sasuke nodded, "he-he-he also said that I pooped myself but it was chocolate milk that spilled on me, I swear!"

Naruto looked away discreetly and mumbled, "no it wasn't-" he held his tongue as the Hokage rounded on him, glaring for him to keep quiet before going back to Sasuke.

"You could have reported him to your headmaster and he would have been punished appropriately," the matter was causing too much of a stir in the village for the headmaster to deal with the culprits himself, it was now a village-wide problem, "hitting people outside of friendly spars is bad," the young Uchiha looked down, "now apologise to Naruto," he hissed quickly as the boy reared back to argue, "apologise,"

"…I'm sorry…" Sasuke muttered.

Naruto took this as a chance to apply what he had learnt from Ayame, "apology accepted. I apologise as well,"

"Good, at least you're being civil about this," the Sandaime said to himself, "your father will be the one to punish you, Sasuke, but your grandfather has allowed me to give you your punishment, Naruto. So Sasuke, you can leave," the Uchiha took his time leaving, choosing to glare at Naruto for as long as possible while just receiving bored blinking eyes and a fake, wide smile that threw him off balance. The door clicked shut behind him.

Hiruzen placed his hands on his table to keep them from shaking, masking the emotions boiling up in him as Naruto stood before him. Naruto still smiled and he still glared heatedly, until the silence was broken by the boy politely coughing.

"My punishment, Hokage-sama," this surprised the hidden ANBU around his office; a child willingly asking to know what his punishment was.

"Before it tell you what it is remember this, I am only allowing you back into my village under the trust of your grandfather; if I even smell treachery from you then I will have you killed on the spot," he flared his killer intent all over the boy and frowned when Naruto's horns glowed a light brown before his own killer intent was blasted back at him, double the intensity and the pressure enough to make his bones ache. Naruto fell onto right knee and hastily called off his _Horn repulsion_ before the man's seal reinforced chair fell through the ground with the Hokage still in it.

"I apologise for lashing back, it is instinctive for me,"

The Sandaime smoothened down his robe and threw a venomous glare over the table at the child as he staggered to collect himself, "make sure it doesn't happen again," he barked. Naruto nodded and placed his right hand on the ground with his left forearm perched on his left thigh and his head looking at the ground, a classic posture ANBU took whenever the Hokage was addressing them, the Hokage's bodyguards noticed, "you will be on probation for a month, that means if you commit any offense during this time you will be expelled from the academy and kicked out of the village. You will help the Inuzuka clan tend to their ninken, you will help the Nara clan tend to their deer and you will babysit the Hyuuga clan heads four year old daughter. All of this in a month," he loomed over his desk in hopes of intimidating the child but he didn't even notice an uncomfortable shoulder shake, "if this is too much for you then you can save us the time and quit, I still have time to kick you out myself,"

Naruto's hidden expression remained neutral, "negative, Hokage-sama, I can handle them,"

"Fine, you may leave," he waved for the boy to leave and watched the young ROOT operative march out of his office, noticing that just as he stepped out the boy's face was taken over by a large smile.

The door closed by itself and he went back to reading the documents on his desk, but only after tossing aside the academy apocalypse report. He began writing inside a piece of paper before he paused and looked up, noticing that his personal guards were lined in front of his desk in their submissive position. The old Kage sighed and set his pen down.

"Stand," the ninjas rose onto their feet at once. The Sarutobi clan head inspected each of them and began, "Dog, Cat, Tiger, Stork, Dragon, what is it?" after hearing about the academy apocalypse he wasn't in any particularly friendly mood.

Dog bowed slightly and spoke for his subordinates, "who is Naruto, sir?" he knew the Hokage understood what he meant.

The Hokage sighed again and rubbed his forehead, "keep in mind that I'm only telling you this because you are my guards and you should be aware of any threat to Konoha. If this is leaked to anyone else then I won't bother with an investigation; I'll just have you five executed," he lit his pipe and puffed out smoke from his nose for a few silent minutes, filling his portion of the room with smoke until it smoothly passed out of the window, "Naruto is the adopted grandson of Danzo and the survivor of his _Triple Black Diamond training regimen_. I'm sure you know what that means Dog, Tiger, Cat," he suspected that their mouths were gaping in shock; Tiger had been trained by Danzo and he was only given a single black diamond training, and that alone had strained his grasp on life and reality itself. Meanwhile Dog was familiar with this training regimen because it was initially used in the third shinobi war to speed up genin training; it was created by Danzo and Kakashi went under a double black diamond years before the war actually started when he was five, under the prodding of his father but it was also his father that withdrew him after Kakashi had a mental breakdown three months later. The Hokage nodded slowly and continued, "that training regimen was banned and placed into the _Secret scroll of village secrets_ because, quite frankly, there were only a handful of double back diamond trainees and most of them went for intense therapy to get over what they had to do; you were lucky to leave when you did Dog,"

Tiger blubbered, "but-but sir…how could that child survive the triple black diamond training? He is only eight!"

"The boy was infused with the genes of an ancient clan I am unfamiliar with that are reportedly known for their mental fortitude, strength, resilience, stubbornness and sheer ruthlessness, coupled with his Uzumaki genes it shouldn't come off as a surprise that he completed his training,"

"He completed it!?" Cat gasped and her hand flew to her mouth, forgetting that she was wearing a mask; the _Black Diamond training regimen_ was never _officially_ documented but her older sister was a survivor of the double black diamond. The woman had retired long ago from active service but she never hid the truth of what she underwent before she quit the training regimen.

Hiruzen nodded, "he completed the TBD training regimen with distinction," let's not forget that Danzo isn't usually one to grade a person with distinction, grandson or not. The monkey summoner leaned forward and perched his pipe between his fingers, "at this point we should all know, or at least suspect, just what that boy could do,"

"Sir, you said that that kid is Danzo-sama's grandson, does that mean…?" Dog started and trailed off as the Hokage nodded affirmative, "…he's ROOT…" he muttered in horror.

"Not only that, he's also a commander in their organization," if it wasn't for his smoking he would have been stressed over by having such a powerhouse in his village, one that might even surpass him. Day by day he always questioned why he allowed ROOT to stay active, even going the extra mile by shrouding them from discovery but so far the pay-off for his harder missions being completed was the benefit. It wasn't easy on his conscience to allow Danzo to take orphans from the orphanage every year but so far ROOT was helping the village in the shadows. So he preferred to stay out of how the shadow organisation was governed; only his ANBU knew about ROOT and this was only when the ROOT was to report a completed mission and hand it over to an ANBU operative or team to submit and take credit.

"Poor boy…" Cat whispered.

"Don't pity him; he is the only TBD survivor and there aren't that many negative effects on him,"

"But sir…he lost his humanity," the woman insisted.

"Even more reason to put him down like an animal is he nudges his pinkie out of line," the Hokage replied almost immediately, "keep your eyes on him,"

**OOOOOOOOOOOOO**

Black sneakers trudged carefully down the street and the owner of these shoes looked at the sun, deducing that it was probably ten in the morning and that he should at least check off his punishments for that day.

As he walked to the Inuzuka clan compound he mentally prepared a schedule on how to deal with each punishment and juggle school and daily life with it; as a ROOT ninja he was familiar with working for days on end with only an hour or two of rest, so he was fairly sure he could handle his punishments with little to no problem.

He had never been so wrong in his life.

He started off by running away from a pack of dogs after they had gotten the whiff of fox on him, not even the evil chakra but _just_ the fox, while ignoring the yells of the resident veterinarian Hana Inuzuka for him to show no fear and stand his ground. The boy sped around the clan compound, making sure to keep him butt as close to his body at all times and far away from the merciless teeth of the ninken. This lasted for two hours before the dogs finally gave up and slumped off in their kennels; from that day he was in charge of walking pups and being sport for older dogs to chase, thereby giving them exercise.

In the Nara compound he was immediately told to shovel deer poop away from their enclosure and transport this poop to the clan compounds dump. He was also told to feed the deer, water them, groom them and made sure the adult deer didn't bully the younger deer. After that experience he had to rush back home and rub off the smell of animal dung from his body, burn his clothes and wear a new pair because the old pair could never be the same again. Next time he would go in plain clothes.

That night, at about seven and after an hour of rest he went to the Hyuuga compound to arrange with the clan head on how to babysit his youngest daughter, Hanabi. He had to explain that it was the Hokage that had given him the job as a punishment for being the centre of the academy apocalypse; the stoic man, not as much as Naruto's grandfather, had begrudgingly agreed to allow Naruto to watch over his daughter every night from seven to eleven while he took the time away from Hanabi to get some clan work done. Hiashi also handed his older daughter to him to watch over as well; so Naruto had pretty much become the bodyguard of the two Hyuuga princesses, even though he was closely watched by branch members every step of the way.

The only survivor of the triple black diamond training regimen almost regretted not taking the Hokage's option of being kicked out as the night started; he could not believe that a girl so small and dainty, born in a clan of prim and proper people with royal blood flowing through her veins could cause so much chaos in the span of thirty minutes. Out of a niggling feeling thrumming in him violently he secretly drew a tracking seal on the girl's forehead with invisible ink.

You see, what the Hyuuga clan head meant by Naruto babysitting Hanabi and looking after Hinata was that he was to take the youngest princess out of the clan compound into the village; he was a council member so he was very much aware of what Naruto could really do so he only sent two main branch members to follow after them. They would return to the compound at about ten in the night and Naruto would have to 'entertain' Hinata as much as he could. Naruto thought it was a great idea to take the four year old Hyuuga princess to an indoor children's recreational building, one that was open until midnight, and as soon as the wide eyed girl caught sight of all the amazing toys and activities going on it took a great deal of effort on Naruto's part to keep track of her movements; one moment she was running up a slide, the next she was flipping on the monkey bars, another she snatched a drink from a child's mouth and slurped it all down, here Naruto had to profusely apologise to the parent of this child and pay for the drink from the money Hiashi gave him to look after his daughter.

It was probably best he didn't let her drink any more bubbly soda.

After leafing out a few notes from the humble roll of cash the Hyuuga clan head had given him as 'expense' or 'Hanabi money' to the disgruntled parent and child his exposed eye darted around in alarm when he couldn't hear her excited squeals.

"Oh kami," he swore under his breathe and cupped his hands, yelling through the loud voices of the children still in the building, "Hanabi-sama! Hanabi-sama!" he felt his heart rate increase drastically as he ran around the ridiculously loud building, calling her name and pelting towards anyone that remotely had straight, long brown hair, male or female, "Hanabi-sama! Where are you Hanabi-sama?!"

A small weight landed on his back and he reared back like a horse when his horns were grabbed in the small hands of the Hyuuga princess he was so frantically calling, "horsey!"

'_How couldn't I sense her!?'_ he questioned with a wince as her hands gripped the strong, pointed protrusion on his head unrelenting as he tried to shake her off. The girl wrapped her legs around his midsection, not able to reach completely around, and dragged back again as he cantered forward quickly, slowing him down and making him fall onto all fours, but only so that he didn't fall all the way back and crush her, "argh! Not so hard!"

She jammed her heels into his sides and settled more comfortably on his back, "I'm hungry, give me food,"

"You need to rest fir-" his pleading as cut off as she yanked his horns back again, making him lift his hands off the ground and _neigh_ like a horse.

"Food!" and jammed her heels into his side again, even harder than the last and he hastily galloped forward on all fours just to get her to relax. His cheeks burned with embarrassment as the parents watched him run on all fours towards toward the food court, even the Hyuuga sent with him laughed lowly in amusement. The girl on his back yipped happily as the wind blew her hair until vertigo hit her and she found herself sitting on a plastic kids chair, a small bowl of rice in front of her, unbroken chopsticks and a faint tingling sensation on her forehead. Her pale eyes snapped to her babysitter and he smiled widely down at her, she glared at him at the smug air around him before he pointed down at her food.

"Eat,"

She crossed her arms stubbornly, "feed me,"

"You have a pair of fully functional hands," he shot back and her head spun in confusion at the words he used, "eat," he commanded again with a large grin.

Half a second of heated glaring from her later and she turned to her food, mumbling, "you're lucky I'm hungry…" as she sourly began eating her food bit by bit while Naruto stood beside her, his eagle eyes looking at her as she finished the food and slumped in her chair, patting her stomach in satisfaction. He checked his watch and nodded when he saw the time blink **09:58PM**, his blue and brown eyes went back to her when she yawned loudly, "I'm sleepy…carry me…" she turned to him and lifted both of her arms for him to carry her. The boy looked to the door of the building, at the two Hyuuga guards that followed him here, and they shrugged, knowing what he was asking them because they had their byakugan activated. Naruto looked down at the girl when she grumbled and began wiggling her fingers at him, beckoning for him to carry her. He hesitantly took her into his arms and she grappled him in her arms like a monkey, not even needing him to support her body in any way, as she dozed off. His arms hung limply at his side and he stood in place for a few silent minutes, noticing that the parents and babysitters were now beginning to trickle out of the building; he mechanically trooped out as well and marched to towards the Hyuuga compound to meet up with his second function or that night.

Hinata giggled into her hands when she saw Naruto with her baby sister wrapped to his torso with her limbs. She silently motioned for him to follow her and he did so, idly observing how with each step she took her body shook with insecurity, until they got to a room adorned with purple wall paper and pink stuffed animals lining the humble bed like pillows. Naruto tried pushing the young child off him, fearing if he applied more strength she would break, until Hinata gently tickled Hanabi's side and caught her as the girl abruptly let go before placing her in bed.

They tiptoed out of the room and Naruto slumped down onto the ground with his back leaning on the wall as the heiress closed the door slowly. He sighed deeply with his eyes closed and blew away the bang over his mouth back in place; he needed to rest, even for a little bit before he had to 'entertain' Hinata. The purple haired girl looked down at her classmate sympathetically, she scurried down the hall and he dully watched her go, he prepared to get back up to go after her, assuming she was playing a game with him, but paused when he saw her run back to him with a steaming bowl of oatmeal in her hands. She quietly knelt down in front of him and carefully nudged the bowl to him.

"Pl-please take it; Hanabi-chan d-didn't have dinner h-here and we h-have leftovers," he looked down at the bowl of oatmeal once and asked.

"You ate oatmeal for dinner?"

She pushed it forward and he took it out of her hands with his gloved hands just to be polite, the metal at the back glinted in the light as he did so, "s-sugarless oatmeal ma-makes her t-tired, plus she likes it too-too so we make it three times a week," her stammering increased as he regarded her with his eyebrows furrowed.

"Is it proper for you to give a servant food from your table?" he held the bowl in one hand.

"T-Tou-san won't l-like it but-but he won't find out if we keep it between us," she held up her pinkie cautiously and he stared at her finger for a second before he also slowly mirrored her action and she gently hooked their fingers together, making her wordlessly gasp in wonder at how deceptively soft his gloves were, "it's our secret," she said with a small smile and for once not stuttering.

He silently looked at their fingers with a slightly solemn expression, "our…secret…" he whispered to himself, then a larger than life smile spread on his face, "it would be our secret,"

She blushed shyly and nodded frantically, "yes, and-and-and if you want to go home I won't mind," she made to get up but he still held her finger.

"I'm…confused…" he said as he stared at their fingers.

"A-about what?" she asked tentatively.

"Why…are you being so kind to me?" he noticed her discomfort at him still hooking his pinkie with hers and he gently let go, allowing her to draw her hands to herself.

She coughed neatly and said, "I-I like helping people,"

"But what do you benefit from 'helping people'"

Her pale eyes crinkled as she smiled softly, "it makes me happy when I see others happy," she pointed at his cooling bowl of oatmeal, "you should finish that before it gets cold,"

He then remembered her act of kindness to him and he slowly turned the oatmeal with his spoon, before looking at her with slight upturned corners of his lips, "thank you, Hinata-sama,"

She waved it away, "please, just Hinata is fine," she made to stand up again but he called her attention by coughing into his fist, "will you please join me, Hinata,"

Her cheeks flared a bright hue of red, "but-but-but there i-is only one spoon!"

"We can share," he said innocently and blinked once when steam blasted out of her ears, her delicate little heart couldn't handle how innocent he was being and she fainted. The boy blurred to his feet and caught her limp body with one hand and balanced his bowl of food in his other, "strange girl," he said with a lax shrug as he threw her onto his shoulder and quietly bumped into Hanabi's room, all the while spooning oatmeal into his mouth. He deftly rolled her off his shoulder, down his arm and gently laid her down beside her baby sister.

He slid out of the room and closed the door noiselessly, as he heard the soft click signifying that the door was fully closed he suppressed a low groan from coming out of his lips and smiled at the Hyuuga standing behind him, spooning more oatmeal into his mouth regardless.

"I was just putting them to bed," he said with a mouthful of white oaty goodness, swallowing it down noisily and saying again, "my name is Naruto, I'm Hanabi-sama's new babysitter and a classmate of Hinata-sa-I mean Hinata," he reached his right hand forward and the Hyuuga looked down at it with disgust, then back at Naruto with even more revulsion. Naruto withdrew his hand and shrugged before passing the silently judging Hyuuga, too worn-out to care anymore.

Neji scowled as Naruto passed by him, happily swallowing more and more oatmeal from his bowl, "you are that boy that caused the riot in school,"

Naruto struggled with a particularly large lump of oatmeal, "yes and I'm being adequately punished for it," he used the corner of his wrist to clean his mouth.

"I was to write a test and remain at the top of my class but because of your disruption I am now sixty first place overall," each class in the academy was lettered A to D; he was in B. The day before students of A and D wrote a test on their general studies in their class year to grade them and B and C were to write it on the day of the academy apocalypse but it was cancelled and pushed to the next day. Neji was angry because he never liked any other name besides his own written as the top of his class.

"I apologise for disrupting school but it was not my fault, I was merely defending myself," he said all of this as he shovelled two more spoons, making Neji's face twist in repulsion. What got under Neji's skin was that Naruto wasn't showing any sort of remorse whatsoever.

"Kneel down and apologise, you rat," he hissed and this was when Naruto stopped eating. The boy slowly looked up at him and his large smile tightened, his visible eye widened like reflective mirrors while his iris shrank into small pin-pricks, this made the Hyuuga prodigy step back cautiously.

"I will do no such thing; you hold no authority over me," he looked back down at his oatmeal and scraped the last remnants into his mouth before burping rudely, making sure to blow it in Neji's direction, "excuse me," he spun on his heels and began leisurely walking to the clan heads dining room so he could find the kitchen and return the bowl and spoon.

"You will apologise like the uncouth scum you are," Neji said and thrust his fingers to Naruto's shoulder, frowning as Naruto reached over his right shoulder with his left hand and blocked the numbing attack with the iron plate on the back of his left glove. There was an echoing clang as the attack hit the stable defence, "how did you-"

"You people are very predictable," Naruto muttered as he continued down his path to the kitchen like he hadn't just been attacked, he allowed the Hyuuga to blubbered over his words in shock his attack was blocked so easily by a younger child, "have a nice night, Hyuuga-san,"

The very next day Naruto was ready with a plan; he would wake up at three in the morning to tend to the Nara deer, in plain clothes, for two hours before he returned to his apartment, threw his clothes into the washing machine, showered with at least four differently scented bars of soap to get rid of the smell of animal on his body, spread his wet clothes on a laundry line outside his room on a balcony and prepared for school. After school he would go to the Inuzuka clan compound and serve his punishment, eat lunch in an Akimichi restaurant and use the three hours before he had to go for his babysitting duty to rest and people watch on his room balcony. He couldn't take Hanabi back to the children's recreational centre because it would bore her too much, so Hiashi allowed him to stay in a separate main branch building to take care of her, under the strict eyes of two main branch members. The girl could go crazy for as long as she wanted there while Naruto watched, satisfied that she couldn't get out of the room even if she tried and if she miraculously escaped he would find her with her invisible tracking seal, hopefully Hiashi won't find out about it too soon. Hinata would bring dinner for all of them, including the main branch guards, and after dinner Hanabi would slump to sleep, always beckoning Naruto to carry her if she was sleepy. The only thing about his day that had to change every once in a while was where to take Hanabi to keep her occupied.

**OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO**

The Multi-Universal Agreement of Heavenly Deities stated that no 'heavenly deity' or god was to ever directly interfere in the affairs of mortals, no matter how tempting or dire it is. They are only to do so if the threat reaches their abode and their sovereignty as gods. This included using their lesser godly subordinates to enforce their rule, though a few gods operated closely to mortals like the Shinigami, under Yami, the goddess of the underworld. He was not to reach out and kill a mortal unless his time had come and he wasn't to whisper encouragements for the mortal to kill him or herself. There were times kami had to assist a person with her power but only because she foresaw how the result would save the heavens and that was the extent of her power, as well as the power of other gods across the millions of other universes. If a god was ever to go against this galactic enforcers would strip him of his power and leave him as a mortal, replacing him with someone else deserving to rule as god, or a god, of their universe.

This multi-universal agreement came millenniums ago when multiverse was wracked with dimension hopping gods and goddesses as well as a few mortals, causing undeserving chaos. A consensus of these gods agreed that this was to stop and they started off by closing off their borders from dimension hopping people or gods; the no-interference addition came after _Ouranus_, the embodiment of the sky, of the universe 756686 walked the earth in a physical body and was later killed by his children, supported by his wife _Gaia_, the earth mother of her universe. This action threatened to tear apart the fabric of reality in that universe and if not for the swift intervention of _Odin _and _Freya_ of universe 205430 and _King Piccolo _and_ Piccolo Jr._ of universe 212566 in sealing up the cracks in the sky, formed after the sky god's murder, the universe would have been destroyed. This was because gods and goddesses were embodiments of existence in their various realities, if they were killed then the universe would crumble and this would also set off a chain of destruction with neighbouring universes until all reality was gone. To avoid this from ever happening again the consensus of gods and goddesses agreed to allow mortals to deal with their problems with only minimal aid on their part, this was also excluding those gods and goddesses that have already been too entangled in mortal affairs, like being physically present during their wars and personally settling feuds. For those kinds of gods they were never to directly take a life or save a life, their subordinates could handle that. Like in universe 312566 where there were beings called _Super Saiyan_ who were able to breach past the strength of a normal mortal to that of a gods, as well as there being numerous godly entities living among them and in plain sight.

There were more exceptions for this law and they had all been outlined, all five quintillion of them.

And thus life moved on.

But with each dimension came smarter gods and goddesses that found a large loophole in the multi-universal law, and this law was that since they couldn't act _directly_ in the mortal world, including using lesser gods since this also classified as direct intervention, then they could bestow their power onto mortals. Technically this would change timelines and the general direction of mortals but they were among the beings that were too tangled with mortals but never making physical appearances, so they didn't use their hands to kill, they used other people to kill for them.

Kami and Yami were among those that found that found this loophole, but they had already exercised their will long before the law was made.

Once upon a time in their universe, known to outsiders as universe 000010, there were three main deities that ruled over all; Kami ruled the heavens, Yami ruled the underworld and Varl ruled a race of men known as Varl bull (of course there will be lesser deities). He was the oldest god in existence and was usually equated to _Odin_ of universe 905430 because of how close to Vikings they looked, except the fact that Varl were immortal and that they had horns, the only way for them to die was for them to be killed. They were only men so they couldn't populate the earth (no duh), that meant that Varl had to create a Varl bull from his flesh and place it on earth as a child. These men did not have any sexual drive whatsoever, which was why they dedicated their lives to serving Varl, their god, and to rearing their powerful breed of bulls. Their universe was among the first in existence, as seen by their universe name, so the multi-universal law was not in effect until universe 900013 came into being. The earth before the law was riddle with chaos and wars, all unknowingly entertaining the gods, until Kami became jealous of the power the Varl bull possessed, so much so that normal mortals didn't classify them as humans anymore, which was why Varl bull were called Varl bull or just men, not humans. She wanted their power for herself so she summoned a feast of the gods and spiked Varl's drink, killing him as he slumped over dead.

She attempted to disguise herself as Varl the next day and grab command of the Varl bull but she was easily sniffed out. The Varl bull might have been seen to be on the dim side of the spectrum but they were far from it; they were smart enough to have their own language and alphabets. The imposter was discovered and cast out; out of sheer embarrassment and rage at being kicked out by Varl bull, testament to their strength, she swore to kill them like she had killed their god. Little did she know that they had heard her declaration and they took the war to the heavens, battling with the ferocity of wounded bulls. The war lasted for hundreds of years and the Varl bull would have succeeded too if not for the last ditch effort by Kami and her sister, Yami; they placed a strained version of their power into a long haired woman called Kaguya Otsutsuki, princess of her clan, and often referred to as the Rabbit goddess for her long rabbit like horns. She did so by planting a seed she called 'Chakra seed' into the ground and the princess ate the lone fruit from the fully grown chakra tree. This happened merely a week after the war had started.

The godly power, now called chakra, mutated Kaguya severely and gave her what is now called byakugan and a red eye with black concentric circles in it on her forehead. Her position as princess elevated to that of goddess in the eyes of her clan mates and she bore two sons; Hogoromo and Hamura. The war for heaven raged on and Kaguya took her time to teach her children how to master the new power in them, before they blindly ran into the war. They managed to tire the clan of brutal men and Kami and Yami took this chance to poison them, erasing the clan from existence but not knowing that a horn had been buried as they stomped around mercilessly.

Seeing the error of their ways Hogoromo and Hamura vowed to avenge the Varl bull clan but their mother did not take their declaration lightly; she absorbed the tree from which she first at the chakra fruit, now blooming with nine chakra fruits, and became what the brothers called the ten tailed beast. They momentarily forgot about what the gods made them do to fight against their now god level mother, boosted by the very tree she had gotten her chakra from. They fought for a hundred years before they managed to separate their mother and seal her into a heavenly body created by Hogoromo's rinnegan called the moon, and aided by his brother he separated the ten tails into nine differently numbered tailed beasts. The brothers went their different paths, Hamura to create his own clan and Hogoromo to teach the world the way of ninshu, because throughout the years of battling Kaguya and the ten tails they had unknowingly been releasing chakra into air. Normal people breathed in this potent chakra and they too got chakra networks, some having two types of chakra and other being able to easily combine their chakra to create _kekkai genkai_. The Otsutsuki clan were the closest to this world shattering battle between mother and children so they were hit with the brunt of this potent chakra, making them have the strongest chakra types in the universe and mutating them to similarly resemble princess Kaguya.

The world forgot about the Varl bull clan and the world moved on to what it was presently.

_Present day_

Kami glared into her crystal ball, "he should not exist," she waved as Naruto traipsed the dark streets of Konoha toward his apartment, relaxed ready to go to bed. The goddess was swaddled in bright white garments that showed the night sky, seeing as it was night. Her long, white hair billowed around her gently and her smooth, healthy skin crinkled slightly as she bared her teeth, "you should not exist," she refrained from sending down a bolt of almighty energy to smite the blonde bug, else she would be surrounded by heavenly enforcers faster than she could say 'oof'.

It wasn't her first time discovering Naruto either; the very moment he started training she smelt his Varl bull chakra (they were created from Varl, of course they have chakra). Though she couldn't do anything, until she caught sight of the small creation Kaguya had left on earth before she was sealed into the moon, the white and black Zetsu were moving too slowly in freeing their mistress.

Either she waited until Kaguya was freed or wait for the Otsutsuki clan to come back to earth, which her foresight allowed her to see would happen many years from that day to destroy any remnant of the Varl bull. A moment of silent musing later and she came to a decision; she had to find a way to contact the Otsutsuki clan without breaking the multi-verse law…

**Authors note**

**Horn repulsion****: this is can only be used by Varl bull, including Naruto. This gives them the ability to repel any genjutsu back to the caster and adding in their own deadly brand of chakra. Since killer intent is an unclassified genjutsu the horn repulsion can also push it back, the only limit to this is if the Varl bull has more chakra than the caster, and **_**NOT**_** more potent chakra.**

**Triple Black Diamond training regimen (TBD)****: this is a forbidden training regimen created by Shimura Danzo before the third great shinobi war. There are only three types of Black Diamond training regimen; the single, double and triple black diamond. The single black diamond alone has racked up to more than thirty casualties, the double was still under its experimental phase so it only had ten trainees while the triple had never been tried since the black diamond was outlawed. The casualties ranged from shattered minds to bodies broken passed the point of healing, no one left without at least a scar on their mind or a scar on their body. There are only a few successful trainees under the single like Ibiki Morino and Orochimaru of the Sannin, who applied to be trained when he was already a jounin. The black diamond training subjected the trainees under both mentally and physically straining activities that pushed the person into a whole new realm of pain and agony, which would inevitably remove the person's ability to feel limited pain and emotions. It spanned for as long as a year, or in the triple diamond's case two years, with the trainee being under constant motion for twenty three hours thirty minutes with only ten minutes to rest and the rest to read, while still reading as they trained. The training regimen was inducted into the **_**Secret scroll of secrets**_** a year before the second shinobi war by Hiruzen Sarutobi as he observed how negatively it affected the psyche of those that survived; all other scrolls were to be burned but Danzo kept the three scrolls his regimen originated from in the ROOT base. Now he only uses half black diamond training for his ROOT ninjas, with the exclusion of Naruto, who was trained with triple black diamond. The only reasons Naruto survived was because of his Varl bull heritage that blessed him with otherworldly endurance, brutish strength, mental fortitude, his Uzumaki heritage that blessed him with strong chakra, a stubborn attitude to life, initially limited chakra control and lightning reflexes, and finally his Namikaze bloodline which just allowed him to be light on his feet (don't forget Minato is a clan-less orphan, don't think too much into it).**

**Secret Scroll of village Secrets****: not to be confused with **_**the forbidden scroll**_**, the secret scroll of village secrets contains all the records of konoha's underhanded dealings and the dark side of their history, including Sakumo Hatake's suicide, the death of Hiashi's brother, the textile market fall, among others. This scroll is ironically named because whatever is contained is more or less already public knowledge, though whatever is written inside should never be mentioned to anyone who is not aware of it. Only the Hokage and the ANBU are aware of this scroll and the scroll is located in a storage seal on the Hokage's left elbow. This scroll was created by Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Sandaime Hokage.**

**That last part speaks volumes on the shit he has done, enough shit to actually create a secret scroll to record all of it in.**

**That's the end of the chapter!**

**I tried to explain these various concepts as best as I can, hope I did a good job. If anyone has any question send a PM or write a review, I'll answer them in the next chapter or right back as a PM. Don't be shy.**

**Now to address something that I'm sure most people would be squealing about; Naruto's power. I will simply say that with all the challenges coming his way and the ultimate boss coming soon he would need all the power he can get; I mean c'mon, the Otsutsuki are basically gods. And Kami is y'know, Kami. Anyone against that notion?**

**Lemme remind you that the multi-universe law stated that no heavenly deity was to interfere with mortal affairs, which includes unruly killing, unless the mortal or mortals were directly (and violently) challenging their sovereignty as a god. Kami has to find a way to make Naruto challenge her so that she can smite him, and let's face it, it'll take a lot of effort to make **_**this**_** Naruto want to fight her.**

**Anyone wondering why there are five quintillion universes here's the reason in three…two…one…crossovers**

**I think that's it. Don't forget to drop a review on your thoughts, I will greatly appreciate it if you do, stay safe wherever you are and I will see you on the flip side.**

**Foy.**


	3. Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

_Twenty nine days later_

It was the last day of Naruto's punishment and he was feeling particularly chipper. His friends noticed it, with the bounce in his step and how he defeated all his opponents in friendly spars without much injury on their part. His usually large smile was smaller and more welcoming, encouraging them to talk to him as he passed and he replied back as politely as he had noted he should.

After school the boy sped down to the Inuzuka kennels and happily ran away from the dogs, his mood picking up when it dawned on him that he wouldn't be returning to the kennels the next day. His forehead didn't even throb when a pup from the pack he was walking, twenty six in total, peed on his leg, that was how blissful he was. Later he treated himself to a satisfying lunch of chicken ramen, only limiting himself to ten bowls before forcing himself out of the ramen stand.

Hiashi suppressed the knowing smirk when as he saw Naruto bow, his face glowing despite his dull eyes and large smile. He silently motioned for Naruto to leave for his function and Naruto retrieved the oddly silent four year old Hyuuga princess from her bedroom, taking her to town where a small festival was being held, conveniently on the same day he was being freed from 'incarceration'. The girl was frowning throughout, not letting go of his hand as they walked around, beholding the strangely dressed people that marched through the village, most of them were wearing black coats and glasses, pale as the moon that shone down brightly from the sky. There were bright lights coming from the gaming booths and both civilians and shinobi alike played the games. The boy felt something amiss as he saw that all the game masters were wearing black shades, he remembered a report he read about Hidden Darkness but it couldn't be possible. Strangely enough his sources said that these travellers arrived at sunset out of nowhere and took over the villages market by setting up stands lit up brightly, opting the citizens of Konoha to assume it was a festival.

He felt his hand being tugged and he looked down at the quiet girl, she was scowling deeply and her eyes looked down, "sister said that today would be your last day as my sitter,"

He smiled broadened, "it is,"

Her lips wobbled and she scuffed her feet, "where will you be going?"

"Nowhere, I'll just keep doing what I've been doing before I started looking after you," she stopped walking and her small hand tightened in his, "is there a problem? Are you hungry? Tired? It's just ten minutes after eight; we still have some time before you have to return to your clan compound,"

Hanabi's shoulders shook silently and his eyebrows furrowed, "I don't want you to go…"

He blinked once, "I said I wasn't going anywhere,"

"Yes you are!" she shouted, not loud enough to attract much attention, "you're not going to be my sitter anymore!"

"Hanabi-sama, I'm sure you'll have another babysitters, one that is much better than me," his smile lessened and he knelt down in front of her, frowning slightly when he noticed tears tracking down her cheeks and her eyes closed tightly as she cried silently.

"B-but I want you," she sobbed, her nose started running, "I want my big brother," she rubbed her eyes with her formal dress's sleeve, blocking him from seeing her cry.

His expression didn't change much besides the slight way his exposed right eye sagged, he then perked up and ruffled her neat hair, "how about we go and have a snack? Dango?"

She sniffled and he slipped a white handkerchief from his left sleeve, using it to dry her tears and help blow out her nose, "what about you're no sweets at night rule,"

"Just for tonight," he winked and a large smile slowly spread on her face when her mind finally understood what he meant. He chuckled and patted her head as she began hopping on her feet excitedly, her energy suddenly coming back, until he paused as the sounds of shrieking entered his ears.

The few civilians and shinobi that had stayed out for the abrupt festival, about two dozen in number, give or take a few, all suddenly vanished, leaving the pale shade wearing game masters standing rigidly in their booths. Naruto's right eye scanned around for life and he didn't see any, the lights of the booths slowly dimmed, leaving only the full moon to illuminate the section of the village. Hanabi noticed his change in mood and stood still, also looking around curiously and flinching as all the game masters leaped over their booths at the same time, creating two lines standing across from each other, thirteen in number. With those wearing coats and shades rigidly marching to stand beside the game masters, adding ten more mysterious men and women to their number. (making twenty three)

Subtle alarms flared in the Varl bull boy's mind and he gently dragged the young girl to him, "hold on," he whispered to her and she quickly wrapped her small arms and legs, with shocking strength, around his torso, her long formal dress ruffled quietly as he got to his feet slowly, glad that it wasn't too long to hinder his movements. A shadow loomed over him at the far end of the stands; a man wearing a dark trench coat and a wide brimmed hat, he grinned evilly and exposed his needle canine. Naruto blew away the bang over his mouth and turned to look at the shadow, his eye widening fractionally at the memory of who they were.

Blood suckers.

He remembered them from a high class mission he went on when he was in ROOT to Hidden Darkness. The mission specs said that there were rumours that Darkness was playing with experimental technology and creating demonic beings of unknown power; there was even a vague picture of them, identical to the ones before him. He and his comrades were to go and investigate on this claim and eliminate them if it was true. This was because Darkness had a grudge to pick with Konoha after the second shinobi war and they couldn't increase their ninja populace enough to launch a full scale attack on them, so they crept out of the light and covered their borders from entry of all kinds. They had been unable to find any information on the claim and the mission was reported as both a success and failure.

The boy flexed his black gloved hands when he saw the man far in front of him tilt his wide brimmed hat down in greeting to Naruto, flashing the Darkness forehead protector wrapped around the top, "greetings, Naruto-kun," his voice was smooth and silky, choked with condescending that made Naruto feel mildly angry. Though he didn't dwell too long on his anger but rather on how the man knew who he was, "you must be wondering how we know who you are,"

Silence.

The shadowy man chortled, "The silent type huh, you'll talk soon enough," he scratched his chin, "we were sent by our leader to eliminate the last descendant of Guron Namikaze,"

'_My paternal grandfather,'_ he echoed in his mind. It was the first time he was being made to pay for the mistakes of his ancestors but he suspected that it wouldn't be the last time; his parents had many enemies and his grandparents, both paternal and maternal, had enemies.

"No hard feelings child, this is simply revenge," he snapped his fingers and the blood suckers lined up to the side bared their teeth, hissing venomously, "kill him but keep the girl alive, she is our secondary mission," the lower level demons surged towards him in numbers, a flurry of shadows that moves faster than normal humans.

Naruto whispered to the Hyuuga princess clinging onto his torso, "close your eyes," she nodded hurriedly into his chest and clamped her eyes shut with all her might as she felt her brother figure leap away multiple times.

Naruto got space between him and the blurry bloodsuckers, _'I need to lead them away from the village to reduce casualties but…'_ his eye darted down to the girl he was looking after, _'I can't have her in the line of fire; I'm not even sure if they can use jutsu,'_ his question was answered when a smooth ball of water as large as a person soared through the air and hit the ground two feet in front of him, he crossed his arms over the girl to block the rocks from the aftershock of the last attack, grunting lowly as he did so. A moment of indecision later and he made up his mind, _'I need to get them away before anything else happens. Don't worry, I'll protect you,'_

He turned around and pelted away, prompting the fanged demons to follow him. As his black sneakers hit the ground with each step he narrowly dodged a thrown jutsu, skidding and sliding out of the way of buildings until he ran up the side of a building and leaped off its edge as soon as hit foot touched down. He landed lightly on the ground, careful of the girl he was looking after and disappeared into the woods just outside of konoha's west wing; he jumped off a building more than fifty yards away from the wall and soared over it, the seal boundary allowed him to do so because it only allowed people out and not in. A flurry of bats blocked the moons light as they screeched through the air, transforming back into their human form as they hit the ground, hastily following the surprisingly fast boy as he hopped from tree to tree, more akin to a black, silver and yellow phantom in the night sky, only seen with the light of the moon and their excellent nocturnal vision.

Alarms rang through the village as they too disappeared after Naruto, but tracking the blood drainers was much harder than tracking a human since the chakra they used for jutsu dispersed into the wind faster than normal peoples'. Besides, the ninjas didn't know they were trying to find non-human entities. Naruto was all alone for now. The boy ran for a few more miles until he skidded to a stop within some sparsely packed trees, with the average distance between trees being ten feet.

The boy had never fought a non-human entity before; he had beaten humans and animals alike but never anything outside of those two. His logical mind ran through what he should attempt to use to defeat them without drawing the fight out for too long, fearing that harm would come upon his charge. He needed to think of a way to quickly kill something he had never killed before that showed abilities he had never seen before, like transforming into multiple bats and moved at speeds far exceeding human limits.

So basically something like him.

He felt the girl wrapped around his middle quake slightly and he ran a gentle hand through her hair to calm her down, "don't worry, I'll protect you," he echoed out loud and this placated her for the time being.

The ROOT ninja was well versed in many fighting styles, about sixteen in total, and he rolled through the ones that would eliminate his targets quickly and efficiently without fail. He closed his eyes in concentration as he indecisively examined two that his memory produced, allowing the lifeblood drainers to catch up and surround him.

"Do you really think running away would save you?" the apparent leader of the demons of the night said cockily, "we can run faster than cheetahs, you cannot escape us,"

Naruto hummed silently and his eyes blazed back open as he made his choice; he settled his feet steadily into the ground and held his fists up, behind Hanabi, tightening them strongly and muttering, _"Rampage fist style: One hit, one kill,"_

"Fancy words won't help either," the same man said with an amused laugh, "kill him and drain his blood, make sure the girl is alive,"

The weakness of everything that moved, as far as he had observed, was the heart and the brain. A hit to either of them, depending on the strength of the attack, would result in an instant kill.

A vampire hissed to him and he swerved aside smoothly, three after images following his movement, before he savagely smashed a right hook to the creature's chest. The result was the blow making the dead organ under the creature's chest to explode in a glorious shower of blood out of his mouth and ears. He summarily dropped onto his knees and fell face first to the ground, melting away before their eyes into a puddle of rancid black blood. He felt the girl hanging onto him fasten on better and he noted not to move that fast in case she was torn off him.

The leader reared back in shock that the child had discovered their weakness at the first hit; he then bared his teeth and yelled, "Kill him!"

They descended onto the lone child and Naruto's face remained expressionless regardless of the odds against him. He planted a foot to another man's chest and continued kicking chests in a circle, a single hit from him resulted in their deaths and their bodies disintegrated into puddles of stinking black blood. Blood splashed across his and Hanabi's bodies as each vampire spat their blood from their mouths and his gloved hands soaked with their blood with each blow. He diverted a claw to his face over his shoulder and drove his right elbow to the leeches' weak spot, keeping his fist in a strong fist through it all.

Cries of pain and death reverberated through the forest but not loud enough to alert the Konoha ninjas.

He jumped away when a bolt of lightning smacked into the ground, blasting mud and blood over him and forcing him away from a blood sucker that attempted to attack him from behind. He wiped the blood out of his eyes and spun on his heels to plant his fist into an incoming attacker's chest, a grisly crunch resonated through the forest, making him realize that he had entered another blind attacking mode. It was always like that; if he started attacking and he stopped a great chunk of his opponents had already been dealt with.

Naruto shook his tightened fists of as much blood as possible and rounded onto the last vampire, the shadowy leader. The man's eyes were wide with horror at the scene before him, petrified of the blood soaked child that had effectively dismembered his men while still being weighed down by his charge. It was a scary sight; the moon shone brightly down on the horned boy, covered from head to toe in inky black blood and deep brown mud but only leaving his exposed right eye to shine brightly amid the blackness of the shroud of blood over him and his charge. Naruto's fists were at his side now, only having him lift his arm up a little just so he wouldn't make the girl clinging to him uncomfortable, and he cocked his head to the side slowly, making a beast made out of fear rear up inside the leader and have him stumble away a few steps.

The boy watched this silently and a thought came to him, _"I need to take him back for interrogation,"_ he slowly creaked open his clenched fists, with them making a frightening cracking sound as he opened them and closed again but not as tight as before. He got into another fighting stance and lifted his fists till they were just under his eyes and his elbows facing away from his body, _"Lotus fist style: Incapacitation,"_ his voice echoed in the deathly silent forest and that was when the leader turned around, and began running away. He threw away all the village patriotism he displayed in the village in favour of saving his own skin, especially because, even though they hadn't underestimated the child, said child knew the best way to kill them and in the most painful way possible.

He heard quick movement behind him, splashing sounds that resembled _pitter pattering _on water and leaves crunching; he made to leap into the air and morph into a swarm of bats in order to escape, but the collar of his coat was dragged back violently and his back slammed into the ground with a resounding thud. Naruto slid his left hand to the downed man's neck and held him in place as his right fist glowed with brown earth chakra, and if not for the small bundle tightly holding to his upper body he would have looked like an even worse demon spawned from the night, much worse than he could ever dream about. Naruto brought down his fist to his head and he saw darkness.

Naruto kept his fist on the man's forehead for a second longer, making sure that his Varl bull chakra entered the parasites head, before he stood up straight. He examined his hands and frowned at the sheer amount of stinking blood that had soaked into his gloves; he refrained from removing them and removed a flare gun from his left sleeve. He made sure there was a round inside as he idly asked his charge, "are you ok?" she made to look up at him and respond but he held her head in place with his left hand, not wanting her to see him soaked in so much blood; it would probably scar her for life.

She stubbornly fought his hand but gave up a moment later; "I'm fine," her voice was muffled against his chest, "are _you_ ok?"

Naruto pointed the flare gun to the sky and between branches, he paused for a second and fired the gun, the sky lit up with red and yellow sparks, leaving a visible trail of light from the point he shot the flare from, "I'm fine, thank you for asking," the tips of his sharp horn glowed with white chakra and he sensed more than a dozen armed ANBU flooding in the direction of the signal flare. He stuffed the flare gun back into his left sleeve and whispered, _"Earth style: Secret subterranean voyage,"_

The boy's body rippled and he slowly sank into the ground, just as the first ninja touched down on his location, immediately assaulted by the rancid odour of the vampire blood and alarmed that one still remained, unconscious. More shadows flooded the location of the fight and only one noticed the scent of disgusting blood enter the ground but the trail ran cold after that. Dog vaguely suspected who it was, from his limited success of finding out who the Varl bull were , and he filed the knowledge aside and signed to his ANBU teammate on what he had discovered; Cat nodded curtly and felt for a pulse on the man's neck, not finding one. However her senses told her that there was a large well of chakra still spinning in his gut, a sign that he was still very much alive; she silently motioned for him to be contained and taken to the T&I.

**OOOOOOOOOOOOOO**

"Big brother Naruto, come and bath me!" Hanabi squealed as Naruto dropped her in front of her father, who frowned disapprovingly at the girl's request.

"That will be indecent, your sister can bath you," Naruto said with a smile large enough to have him close his eyes. He shooed her off and she ran into the clan heads home, tracking mud and thick black mud with each step; the clan heads servants called after her, imploring for her to wait for them as they hurried after the child. Naruto's smile reduced till it became a straight line, "I will have to report what happened to the Hokage,"

The stoic clan placed his hands behind his back, "what was the cause of those alarms?"

Naruto stood at attention and recited, "Standard Shinobi Protocol states that all information pertaining to the village's security must first reach the Hokage, or the commander of ANBU, before anyone else, besides during times of emergency,"

"That only applies to registered ninjas of the village,"

The boy's teeth clamped at the reminder that ROOT wasn't a legal organisation and that he was only an academy student, "I'm certain Hokage-sama would fill you in on what happened soon,"

"I simply want to know what had threatened to life of my daughter; your charge, Naruto," Hiashi said and looked down at the horned boy. Naruto searched the man's pale eyes and a report of when Hinata had been kidnapped came back to him. The boy's shoulders lost their strength and they slumped in resignation. Besides the empty gaze reflected in the man's deactivated byakugan eyes he saw small underlying fear for losing a close family member. He never felt the emotion before but he had seen it many times from those around him.

"Creatures sent from Hidden Darkness ambushed us at the far corner of the market district, a few posed as civilians. I was their primary target and Hanabi-sama was their secondary target,"

"Any loss of life?"

"I counted seventeen missing civilians and four missing shinobi, probably chunin, I'm not sure,"

The man hummed, "did they say why you were the primary target?"

"My paternal grandfather, Guron Namikaze," the boy simply said and Hiashi 'ah'd' in understanding; Konoha was known for being the home for the strongest ninjas on the planet. Guron was a reputable Namikaze before he killed himself in a last ditch effort to hold back Darkness shinobi in a blast of fire a very long time ago.

The Hyuuga clan head regarded Naruto briefly before he looked back to the sky, where the remnants of the flare was dispersing, "you may go back home; allow me to handle the report," the man at least understood that Naruto was _technically_ not supposed to have been able to handle the infiltrators, but Naruto still wondered why he was told not to report the situation himself.

"Why, sir?"

"You protected my daughter from harm; you are now an ally of my clan for doing that,"

"I'm honoured, sir," Naruto muttered with a deep bow.

"And," Hiashi said, pausing as Naruto stood straight; the dry mud and blood fell off his clothes in flecks, showering the ground around the boy's feet. The man ignored it and continued, "I wish to employ you as Hanabi's caretaker until she is old enough not to have one," it was very uncharacteristic for the man but he had his reasons; the first was that Hanabi had called Naruto her 'big brother'. The man slowly added, "I will pay you handsomely every week for your services,"

Naruto looked down to the ground in thought as he contemplated several things in his mind; at this point he was very much used to how rambunctious Hanabi behaved and they had at least reached an understanding, seeing as the child knew that Naruto didn't allow her to have sugary treats at night. He would have agreed without hesitation just for the money but he stalled for a moment, trying to come up with a reason the clan head wanted him as a semi-permanent fixture in Hanabi's life; was it because he was strong? Was it because of his parents? Was it because his nature as a ROOT ninja made him somewhat trust worthy?

The answer finally came to him a whole minute later as he recalled something the clan head said not too long before, 'You are now an ally of my clan'.

Naruto felt his eyes water at the man's declaration, the amount of trust he had been given just for performing his duty almost overwhelmed him as he bowed again and said, "I would be honoured to be Hanabi-sama's caretaker," he straightened up and his eye widened as he saw the man reach forward for a hand shake, he hesitated as he realized how dirty his hands were but the man _knew_ this but still waited patiently for his hand.

They shook hands firmly and Hiashi said, "We will discuss your weekly pay and your timetable tomorrow. Now you must go and take a bath and rest at your apartment," he would have invited Naruto to bathe and stay the night at the clan compound, seeing as the blonde child was an ally of the clan, but he feared that the boy would snap under all the 'kindness' he was receiving that night.

The child, flustered at the development of the night, bowed again and ran out of the clan gates, just as Hinata made her appearance beside her father, too slow to catch the boy as his form vanished into the night. She looked up at her father and Hiashi kept his eyes on where Naruto had gone, impressed at how Naruto was suppressing his well of chakra; it would better his guise as an academy student if he suppressed it so much so it resembled that of an average student's if he was ever examined by a sensor.

"W-where's Naruto-k-kun, Tou-san? I-I th-thought I h-heard his voice," she tapped her fingers together and looked around with her pale eyes for any sight of her classmate. The boy wasn't really one with words but he didn't make fun of her stutter.

"I sent the boy back to his apartment to freshen up and rest," the man replied in a stony voice, not liking how his oldest daughter was stuttering but consoled himself that it was merely a phase; if she associated with people her age more then maybe it would go, but he won't let up on her training.

"D-did something ha-happen?" the villages intruder alarms had gone off thirty minutes ago and she had been concerned about the wellbeing of her sister and her (somewhat) friend.

He grunted, "Nothing you should worry over, go back and practise your kanji," her eyes lowered and she returned to her Hyuuga tutor. Hiashi truly believed that with the right push Hinata would become a force to be reckoned with, what he was trying to determine was what that push was and how hard he would push her, for now he had her revise topics a week before they were introduced in class. She was among the top three students in class, slowly inching towards the second best in class, though something was keeping her back mentally. He needed to find out what it was and kill it so he could see her true potential.

The clan head brusquely nodded as a branch member whispered that the Hokage had summoned for the council.

**OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO**

It wasn't the first time Naruto didn't take credit from capturing a criminal and it possibly won't be the last time. He had grown up in the darkness of the ROOT base and this had affected his perception in the sense that he preferred staying away from the light in favour of growing in the shadows. In truth he had many important captures under his belt that would have made him a global force to be reckoned with and since he wasn't one of his grandfathers 'tools' he had the option of taking credit. The boy was well taught by the smartest people he knew and they had been expressly told not to warp his thoughts on taking credit for kills and capture but they had also been told to show him the benefits and drawbacks of both.

The drawbacks of staying a secret were mostly moral based; that his name wouldn't be on everyone's lips, he would probably forever be underestimated and he might be looked down on for not making an impact publically, it goes on. The benefits were that he would have privacy to do as he wished without people swarming around him, privacy to grow in strength and skill, among many other things.

Naruto waddled into his apartment and kicked the door shut; his clothes were now pretty much one whole slab of murky brown and black mud, his arms and his legs were still as the mud solidified them in position. The boy wasn't a clean freak but he also didn't like making a mess so he carefully scuttled to his bathroom, kicked the door shut behind him and stepped into the shower. He turned around and bumped his behind on the waterproof silver button that had a red plastic cover, symbolizing hot water. The boy sighed tiredly as the water cascaded down, pouring on his mucky silver beanie and flowing down his body till the hot water softened the clothes on him, flowing into the drain. He took off his beanie and threw it into the short laundry basket beside the door, running his hands through his shaggy blond hair and sighing again. He placed his forehead onto the tiled walls and closed his eyes as the impact of everything that had happened to him fell onto his shoulders, he shivered at the dreadful thought of losing his charge or even making a small mistake and allowing harm to come to her, then he felt light heartened about his new achievement as ally to the Hyuuga clan, a rare honour not seen in many years. His soaked clothes were now soft enough for him to peel off; first removing his shirt and tossing it to the laundry basket, then his pants followed suit. The boy then closed the shower curtain and his hand slipped out from the side, throwing his sneakers, sneakers, socks, gloves and inner vest so he could do wash them later.

An hour of careful showering later and Naruto carefully trudged over the slippery ground, a white and blue towel wrapped around his waist, and entered his bedroom to change into lighter clothes. Ten short minutes later he left the room, wearing a short sleeved dark shirt and shorts with red flip flips. His pale skin even seemed to glow as the light hit it and he uncomfortably rubbed his arms at not being used to showing that much skin. The boy winced when he felt his fingers throb and he looked at them, the back of his fingers had bright red welts crossing them numerous times and he rubbed them gently, a consequence of using the _Rampage fist style_ at his current age. He left his bedroom's open, and hefted the laundry basket up, tread to his front door and slipped out silently, ensuring that his door clicked shut before he steadily walked down the stairs. At the ground level he immediately walked to the room to his right, conveniently labelled 'Laundry room'. There he found a couple also doing there laundry, strangely at night but who was he to judge; that was what he was going to do.

The laundry room was as spacious as his bathroom with soothing colours painted on the walls and ceiling fans spinning slowly to push out any odour through the many open windows of the room, nearby were plastic chairs lining the wall to the right, the one closest to him, that served as a sort of waiting room while the clothes were being washed. There stood seven gleaming washing machines ranging from white to dark red in colour, with only two being used at the moment. Naruto smiled at the couple and nodded politely as he set his laundry down near the machine closest to the door and furthest away from the bickering couple, who lessened their voice as the young boy entered. Naruto picked up the basket and threw all of the contents into the wash, sneakers and all, but before he could close the door and pour the detergent set on top of the machine the woman, a black haired beauty with sharp features yelled.

"Don't do that!" Naruto froze, his fingers halfway to the detergent box and looked at the woman with his eyebrows in his hair, "you need to separate the colours first,"

"They're all black," he said and his fingers inched closer to the box.

The man, a diminutive person with deep blue hair, scoffed, "you just threw in a pair of perfectly good shoes into a washing machine," he ignored the glare his wife sent him.

"Where else do I clean my shoes?" Naruto said mechanically as his hand grasped the box of soap.

"You mean this is the first time you're cleaning your shoes?" the small man asked and Naruto shrugged, "you could do it manually or you could go to the cobbler across the street and ask him to clean it for you,"

The boy bent down to remove his shoes, "thank you," he smiled and placed his shoes back into his basket; he'll have to drop them off before he leaves for school. The man nodded sternly and continued separating the coloured laundry in their pile, allowing Naruto to discreetly remove his silver beanie from the clothes in the wash and plop it into the basket on his muddy shoes, though not fast enough for the eagle eyed woman to not catch him.

"Let me help you with that," she said and marched to him even as he hurriedly told her that he could handle his own laundry. It _technically_ wasn't his first time doing laundry, though it was the first time his clothes were _that_ dirty. The woman shoved him aside rudely and tapped in a small amount of the powdered soap into the required compartment on the machine.

"Thank you," Naruto said gratingly, his smile twitching with irritation. She tapped a few buttons and the machine started its spin cycle, power washing the mud and blood on Naruto's clothes as best as it could, "do you need help with your laundry?" he asked just to be polite and the woman waved his offer away.

"Don't worry about my; my _BUM OF A HUSBAND_ has it covered," she said as she yelled over to him before flipping her long, silky smooth black hair over her shoulder irritably.

"I love you too honey!" he yelled back at her sarcastically, "I work _three_ important jobs in my company and you sit on your ass _all day_, but for some reason I'm still in the same place!" his deep voice resonated through the room and he angrily threw down a pink blouse onto the red pile, he cursed foully and slapped it into its appropriate pile.

"Don't you take that tone with me, if it wasn't for me you wouldn't even be employed!" she shrieked right back.

A large sweat drop formed on the side of Naruto's head as he mumbled, "Uhm…"

The woman ignored him and pointed a red painted talon at her husband, "and I do not sit on my ass all day, it takes at least four hours a day to look as good as this," she flipped her hair again. The man's face turned red and he exploded on her.

"You blood sucking leach!"

Naruto's eyebrows flickered to the woman and he squinted at her suspiciously, his fingers inching behind him to a seal on the small of his back where he kept his standard weapons; kunai, shuriken and ninja wire, "blood sucker…" he mouthed and steadily got into an attacking position, until the woman shrieked back at him.

"If I'm a bloodsucker then you're a lecherous perverted fool! Do you think I don't know where you go after work!?"

The man didn't even stumble, "at least she knows how to please a man!" she began ambling to him intimidatingly, her height casting a shadow over him but with how bulky he was he could easily match her. Naruto summoned two kunai into his hands, not wanting to use the fighting style in front of a civilian, and took a step forward so he could soar over and stab her in the head, but his left hand shot up and the deadly sharp point of his blade barely touched the throat of whoever wanted to touch his shoulder.

Uchiha Itachi didn't flinch as the tip of the blade rose up to his throat, stopping just short as he stopped himself from holding the boy back. Naruto looked over his shoulder blandly and lowered his weapon, but not stopping his feet from preparing to leap at the woman.

"She isn't a bloodsucker, Naruto,"

"He called her one,"

"It was an insult," he droned and led the boy out of the room, "I was sent by Hokage-sama to summon you,"

**Authors note**

**Done!**

**Rampage fist style: One hit, one kill: this is a forbidden fighting technique with unknown origins. The attacks for this style focus on striking weak points of the body while forcefully injecting chakra into the body thereby disrupting the flow of the victim's chakra and causing inevitable death from the loss of the vital weakness. The points targeted are the head and the heart seeing as no one can live without the other. The fighting style is similar to the style Tsunade Senju uses but it is relatively older than the Sannin's fighting style.**

**Lotus fist style: Incapacitation: this is the fighting style hunter ninjas' use when they intend to bring their targets back alive. On the surface it looks easy to use but it involves rigorous use of chakra control to channel chakra through select points on the knuckles, or fingers, and quickly hitting the forehead, between both hemispheres of the brain, to briefly, so fast it seemed not to have happened, to disrupt the flow of chakra to the brain so as to knock the target out.**

**Kindly leave a review and stay safe.**

**Foy.**


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